1,11  '.K'AKY 

•'1   TIIK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


<  ,1  1<NT   OF 


Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

Received  October,  1894. 
^Accessions  No . SJ 3  ^ (o  .      Class  No. 


HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 


LECTURES 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  PREVAILING  FORMS  OF  UNBELIEF, 

CONSIDERED  IN  RELATION   TO  THE  NATURE  AND 

CLAIMS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  SYSTEM. 


BY 


REV.  J.  M.  MANNING,  D.D., 

PASTOK  OF  THE  OLI>  SOUTH  CltOItOII,   HOSTON,  AND   LECTURER  ON  THE 

RELATIONS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  POPULAR  INFIDELITY 

AT    ANDOVER   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY. 


Other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  which 
is  Jesus  Christ.     1  COR.  Hi.  11. 


UHIVBRSIT7 


BOSTON : 
LEE    AND    SHEPARD,    PUBLISHERS. 

:N-E\V   YORK: 
LEE,  SHEPARD  AND  DILLINGHAM. 

1872. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871, 

BY   LEE  AND  SHEPAKD, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Stereotyped  at  the  Boston  Stereotype  Foundry, 
•      No.  19  Spring  Lane. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

Nature  and  spirit  of  the  work.  —  Definition  of  the  word  "  infidelity."—  Char- 
ity; its  limit.  —  Invidious  use  of  the  word.  —  Practical  infidelity.  —  Sense  in 
which  the  word  is  here  used.  —  Etymological  meaning.  —  To  be  used  with 
discrimination  at  all  times.  —  Should  be  boldly  applied  when  deserved. — 
Two  sources  of  infidelity.  —  Strictly  but  one  source.  —  Effects  of  the  Fall.  — 
Two  opposite  mental  tendencies.  —  Each  tendency  the  source  of  a  class  of 
infidelities.  —  Scope  of  the  present  work.  —  Suggestions  in  advance.  —  Spec- 
ulative and  scientific  theories  not  to  be  prejudged.  —  Error  not  always  to  be 
denounced.  —  Mistake  respecting  astronomy.  —  Treatment  of  geology.  — 
Caution  respecting  Darwinism.  —  Fondness  of  clergymen  for  science.  — 
Man's  physical  nature  not  a  subject  of  revelation.  —  A  true  spirit  of  reform 
in  the  church.  —  Natural  history  of  infidel  reformers.  —  Infidelity  welcomes 
those  whom  the  church  repels.  —  The  church  not  innocent.  —  Should  avoid 
a  false  position.  — Duty  of  the  pulpit.  — Congr*gations  must  co-operate.— 
New  England  pulpit  to  be  commended.  —  Effect  of  a  weak  pulpit.  —  Lead- 
ing infidels.  —  How  the  exigency  is  to  be  met,  —  The  spirit  of  Christ  in  his 
people  our  main  reliance.  —  Duty  of  ministers.  —  The  whole  church  must 
have,  the  mind  of  Christ.  — How  the  spirit  of  Christ  is  to  be  shown.  — This 
spirit  peculiar  to  Christianity Pages  1—36 


LECTURE  I. 

SPINOZA  AND   OTHER  MASTERS. 

A  singular  death-bed  scene.  —  Spinoza's  parents  religious  refugees.  —  His 
childhood..— His  studies.  —  His  defection.  —  His  trial.  —  His  conduct.— 
His  excommunication.  —  A  fugitive.  —  At  school.  —  His  love.  —  Bis  pur- 
pose formed.  —  Reads  Descartes.'—  Characteristics.  —  His  poverty.  —  His 

(v) 


VI  CONTENTS. 

patience.  —  His  tolerance.  —  His-casy  views  of  all  events.  —  Vagueness  of 
ancient  writers.  —  The  Alexandrine  masters.  —  Plotinus.  —  lamblichus.  — 
Proclus.  —  Plato.  —  ATistotle.  —  Xeuophaues  the  Eleatic.  —  Ileraclitus,  — 
Pythagoras.  —  Ilylozoists  and  others.  —  The  Orientals.  —  Egyptian  specula- 
tion. —  Primitive  monotheism.  —  The  Chinese.  —  The  Greeks.  —  Testimony 
from  Egypt.  —  Conclusion  of  Naville.  —  Origin  of  Fetichism.  —  The  Totem  of 
the  Indians.  —  Spinoza  our  starting-point.  —  Vagueness  before-  him.  —  Course 
of  religious  thought  sketched.  —  Spinoza's  system  the  receptacle.  —  Claims 
of  Bruno.  —  Intellectual  activity  of  the  age  favorable  to  Spinoza.  —  The  Ref- 
ormation. —  Bacon.  —  The  Pilgrim  Fathers.  —  Richelieu  and  Cromwell.— 
The  Dutch.  —  Locke.  —  Newton.  —  Triumphs  of  science.  —  Mathematics.  — 
Astronomy.  —  Optics.  —  Literature  of  the  seventeenth  century.  —  Theology.— 
Religious  writers.  —  Divine  purpose 37 — 73 

LECTURE  II. 

THE  NATURE  AND  GROUNDS  OF  PANTHEISM. 

Definition  of  pantheism.  — How  it  differs  from  theism  and  atheism.  — Wherein 
atheism  and  pantheism  a-ree.  —  Language  of  pantheists  often  ambiguous.  — 
Many  names  lor  one  thing.  — Knowledge  of  Spinozism  which  the  purpose 
of  this  work  requires.  —  Descartes  was  Spinoza's  guide.  —  This  doubted. — 
Opinion  of  Saisset.  —  Parentage  of  Descartes.  —  Early  purpose.  —  Criterion 
of  truth.  —  Not  original  vrtth  Descartes.  —  Testimony  as  to  Descartes'  posi- 
tion.—  Four  main  points  in  Cartesianism.  — "  I  think,  therefore  I  am."  —  Crit- 
icism of  Gasseudi  and  Huxley.  —  Descartes  to  be  taken  as  he  understood 
himself.  —  The  Cartesian  method.  —  Descartes'  first  step.  —  A  foothold  for 
Spinozism.  —  The  recognition  of  Reid's  doctrine  of  necessary  truths  would 
have  saved  Descartes.  —  The  Cartesian  argument  for  the  divine  existence 
favors  Spinozism.  —  The  argument  for  a  God  which  now  tends  to  prevail.  — 
Descartes  only  seems  to  anticipate  this.  —  How  his  argument  legitimates 
pantheism.  —  The  Cartesian  method  aids  the  tendency  to  pantheism.  —  The 
tendency  further  strengthened  by  his  deninl  of  second  causes.  —  Spinoza's 
logic  faultless.  —  The  premises  of  pantheism  untenable.  —  The  central  posi- 
tion of  Spinozism.  —  The  dogmatic  result.  —  Three  kinds  of  knowledge. — 
Some  account  of  the  Ethics.  —  Subject,  of  the  Second  Part.  —  Of  Part  Third. 
—  Of  Part  Fourth. —  Of  Part  Fifth.  — Of  the  First  Part.  —  Definitions.  — 
Axioms.  —  A  demonstration. —  Perfection  of  superstructure.  —  Two  attri- 
butes of  substance.  —  Bearing  on  question  of  immortality.  —  Fatalism.  — 
The  a  priori  philosophy  not  to  be  judged  by  Spinozism.  —  Malebranche. — 
Leibnitz.  —  The  safeguard 74 — HO 


CONTENTS.  Vil 

LECTURE  III. 

THE   GERMAN   SUCCESSION 

A  reaction.  -  Empiricism.  -  This  movement  to  be  passed  over  for  the  present. 
—  Revival  of  Spinozism.  —  What  is  here  attempted.  —  Relation  of  Leibnitz 
to  the  new  movement.  —  The  Leibnitz-Woman  philosophy.  —  Kant's  earlier 
views.  -  The  need  of  a  critic  suggested  by  Hume.  -  Critique  of  the  pure 
reason.  — Relation  of  the  reason  to  the  understanding.  —  Space  and  time 
forms  of  the  reason.  — The  categories  of  the  understanding. —  Ideas  of  the 
reason. -What  they  are.  — Their  subjective  nature.  —  Where  this  critique 
leaves  us.  -  Kant's  plan  broader  than  this  sphere  of  the  reason.- Another 
faculty.  —  Function  of  the  practical  reason.  -  Result  not  satisfactory.  -  Cri- 
tique of  the  judgment.  —  The  object  not  attained.  —  Three  distinct  tendencies 
in  Kant.  —  Reinholrl.  —  Jacobi.—  His  mystical  tendency.  -  Argues  against 
Kant's  first  critique.  -  The  thinkers  of  his  time  not  with  him.  -  The  inter- 
view with  Lessing.  —  Character  of  Jacobi.  —  Hegel's  criticism.  —  Fichte.  — 
Thought-activity  the  only  know-able  thing.  — The  non-ego.  -  A  product  of 
the  ego.—  The  alternative  of  atheism  or  pantheism.  —  Accused  of  atheism.— 
Becomes  a  pantheist.  —  Unlike  Spinoza.  —  The  true  wisdom.  —  Fichte's  pan- 

•  theism  considered  defective.  —  Schelling.  —  Grand  objection  to  Fichte.— 
Schellingian  doctrine  of  knowledge.  —  How  Schelling  reaches  the  position 
of  the  pantheist.  -  His  system  described.  —  Agreement  with  Spinoza.  — 
Three  potences.  —  How  they  work  in  the  evolution  of  spirit.— Distinction 
between  nature  and  spirit.  -How  Schelling  would  account  for  Christianity. 
—  The  spirit  of  Schelliqg's  system.  —  Short  continuance  of  this  school  of 
pantheism.  —  Schelling  and  Edgar  A.  Foe.  —  Culminated  in  Hegel.  —  The 
best  refutation  of  error  its  clear  statement.  —  An  anachronism.  —  Hegel.— 
The  absolute  idea.  — Use  of  Kant's  antinomies.  —  The  logical  movement.— 
Natural  philosophy.  —  Philosophy  of  spirit.  —  Its  theological  result.  -  Hegel 
and  Kant.  — Consequences  of  the  system.  —  Strauss.  —  Schleiermacher.  —  Net 
result.  —  Lesson  of  the  survey  now  taken.  —  Testimony  of  Miiller.  111—149 

LECTURE   IV. 

THE   PANTHEISTIC   CHRISTOLOGY. 

Philosophy  and  religion  inseparable.  —  This  more  manifest  in  the  a-priori 
philosophy.  — Two  uses  of  the  word  "  religion."  —  When  pantheism  is  a 
religion.  —  Religions  to  which  pantheism  may  be  applied.  — Re- statement  of 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

Hegelianism.—  The  absolute  idea.  —  A  triplicate  process.  —  Compared  with 
Comte's  "three  states."  — Illustrated  in  history  of  civilization.  — In  art. — 
Progress  and  conservatism.  — The  absolute  idea  in  religion.— Christianity  a 
form  of  the  absolute  idea.  —  Different  views  of  Hegelianism.  —  The  "  right." 

—  The  "left."— The  "  centre."  —  Strauss.  —  His  Life  of  Jesus.  — The  idea 
in  religion  alone  important. —  The  question  of  historic  truth  trivial.  —  Essen- 
tial Christianity.  —  How  the  idea  produced  the  so-called  record.  —  Criticism 
deals  with  the  non-essential.  —  Evidence  that  Strauss  was  a  pantheist.  —  His 
view  of  the  incarnation.  —  The  origin  of  the  Gospels. —  Accepts  Spinoza's 
view  of  Christ.  —  Thinks  his  criticism  true  to  the  spirit  of  the  narrative. — 
The  gospel  record  a  piece  of  cloud  scenery.  —  Advantage  of  this  pantheistic 
position.  —  The  Paulists.  —  Evemerus.  —  His  method  revived  by  Lessing  in 
Wolfenbiittel  fragments.  —  How  used  by  Paulus.  —  Results  of  the  theory.  — 
Regarded  as  a  failure.  —  Eichhorn.  —  De  Wette.  —  Strauss  finds  germs  of  his 
theory  in  them.  —  Also  in  Origen  and  Philo.—  Relation  to  other  schools  of 
criticism.  —  Secret  of  popularity.  —  Three  principlos  of  interpretation.  —  The 
position  of  Strauss.  —  The  myth.  —  How  he  makes  room  for  it.  —  The  idea 
produces  the  story.  —  What  follows  if  the  Gospels  are  post-apostolic.  —  In- 
ternal evidence  against  Strauss.  — Also  external  evidence.  —  How  he  would 
evade  it.  —  The  argument  against  him  overwhelming.  —  Baur.  —  Differs  from 
Strauss.  —  How  he  accounts  for  the  Gospels.  —  Traces  of  a  conflict.  —  Pauline 
party  favored.  —  Peter  overborne.  —  Paul  triumphs.  —  The  reasoning  of  Baur 
not  admissible.  —  No  special  refutation  needed.  —  There  were  parties  in  the 
early  church. -- Baur's  treatment  unfair.  —  An  argument  for  inspiration. — 
Renan.  —  Requires  no  special  treatment.  —  Spirit  of  his  criticism  pantheistic. 

—  An  irreverent  comparison.  —  Free  religion.  —  Its  peculiarity.  —  May  be 
traced  to  Hegel.  — Christianity  triumphant 150—182 

LECTURE  V. 

THE   CULTUKE   WHICH   PANTHEISM  LEGITIMATES. 

A  feature  of  modern  thought.  —  Spontaneity.  —  Authority.  —  New  theory  un- 
tenable.—  Relation  to  pantheism. — Goethe.  —  Why  chosen.  —  Viewed  only 
in  one  aspect.  —  Relation  to  other  thinkers  of  his  age.  —  Ignorance  of  his 
speculative  views.  —  Early  scepticism.  —  Proofs  that  he  was  a  pantheist. — 
Meets  with  Jacobi.  —  Wished  to  be  known  as  a  Spinozist.  —  Fatalism.  —  Di- 
vineness  of  nature.  —  Free  necessity.  —  Tone  of  his  writings.  —  The  two 
Goethes.  —  As  a  student  of  nature.  —  Works  in  which  he  shows  to  advantage. 

—  Shorter  poems.  —  Tphigenia  in  Tauris.  —  Egmont.  —  Hermann  and  Doro- 
thea. —  Wherein  his  theory  works  evil.  —  Faust.  —  Goetz  von  Berlichingen. 


CONTENTS.  IX 

—  False  theory  of  morals.  —  Popularity  of  Goetz.  —  Sorrows  of  Werther. — 
Its  influence.  —  Origin  of  the  work.  —  Complaints  of  his  friends.  —  Wilhelm 
Meister.  —  The  Fair  Saint.  —  Philina.  —  Mignon.  —  Other  characters.  —  Elec- 
tive affinities.  —  Natalia  and  Wilhelm.  —  Goethe's  theoretical  views  carried 
into  his  life.—  His  faults  not  to  be  passed  over.  —  Had  noble  traits.  — Was 
not  a  patriot.  —  Goethe  not  consistent  with  his  theory  of  culture.  —  Would 
have  been  better  as  a  man  if  more  inconsistent.  —  Allowance  to  be  made  to 
art.— .The  obligations  of  the  artist.  —  Christianity  teaches  the  only  adequate 
theory  of  human  culture 183—226 

LECTURE  VI. 

PANTHEISM  IN   THE  FORM   OF   HERO-WORSHIP. 

The  representative  name.  —  Method  of  treatment.  —  Carlyle's  position  in  Eng- 
lish literature.  —  His  style.  —  Ethical  tendency.  —  A  politic/il  reformer.  — 
Was  he  a  pantheist  ? —  Not  in  the  dogmatic  sense.  —  Proofs  of  a  pantheistic 
spirit.  —  His  idea  of  history.  —  Of  the  individual.  —  Views  of  nature  panthe- 
istic. —  His  doctrine  of  necessity.  —  Of  space  and  time.  —  Religious  views.  — 
Bibles.  —  Origin  of  worship.  —  Sincerity  alone  essential.  —  Accepts  Goethe's 
definition  of  religion.  —  Result.  —  How  his  pantheism  afleets  his  political 
views.  —  Makes  him  revolutionary.  —  French  Revolution.  —  Laws  and  com- 
pacts not  the  basis  of  true  government.  —  Function  of  representative  assem- 
blies.—  Hates  democracy  as  much  as  constitutional  monarchy.  —  Eulogy  of 
the  Pilgrims.  —  Mahometanism  as  good  as  Puritanism.  —  No  love  for  free 
government  in  any  case.  —  Scorn  of  moral  and  social  reforms.  —  Origin  of  his 
contempt  for  democracies.  —  Negative  side  of  his  political  creed.  —  His  polit- 
ical and  social  creed  positively  stated.  —  Hero-worship This  the  basis  of 

primitive  governments.  —  Urged  as  the  only  real  basis.  —  Great  men  a  the- 
ophany.  —  Carlyle's  ideal  of  a  great  man.  —  Plea  for  his  theory  of  govern- 
ment. —  The  result  of  the  theory  is  anarchy.  —  Hero-worship  contrasted  with 
Christianity 227-267 

LECTURE  VII. 

PANTHEISM  IN  THE  FORM  OF   SELF-WORSHIP. 

Individualism.  —  Represented  by  Emerson.  —  Method  of  treatment.  —  Con- 
trasted with  Carlyle.  —  His  excellent  temper.  —  Of  purer  tone  than  Goethe. 

—  Monotony.  —  Nomenclature.  —  "Old  Two-Face."  —  Comprehensive  state- 


X  CONTENTS. 

ments  of  pantheism.  —  AH  things  are  God.  —  History.  —  Literature.  — God  a 
gentleman.  —  Love.  —  Prayer.  —  What  Emerson  has  to  say  of  personality. — 
An  ignis  fatuus. —  God  impersonal. — But  one  conclusion  possible.  —  Emer- 
son's method.  —  Consciousness  the  way  to  all  truth.  —  No  mean  egotism. — 
Definition  of  man.  —  The  varieties  of  genius  forms  of  the  divine  conscious- 
ness. —  Teaches  the  pantheistic  fatalism.  — All  things  subject  to  fate.  —  No 
one  can  do  otherwise  than  he  does. —  All  life  natural.  —  Emerson's  use  of 
words  literal  rather  than  rhetorical.  —  Even  fate  a  mystery.  —  The  objective 
world  in  the  light  of  Emerson's  philosophy.  —  History  absorbed  into  the 
soul.  —  All  literature  the  biography  of  each  man.  —  A  practical  result.  —  Na- 
ture an  evolution  of  the  soul.  —  The  world  man  externized.  —  Knowledge  of 
nature  but  self  knowledge.  —  Emerson's  theory  of  nature  that  of  every  sub- 
jective idealist.  —  More  specific  injunctions.  —  Duty  of  self-reverence.  —  Self- 
reliance.  —  Self-assertion.  —  The  moral  law  wholly  subjective.  —  Duty  of 
self-isolation.  —  To  be  wholly  self-absorbed  the  highest  blessedness.  —  "  Men 
descend  to  meet."  —  Misanthropy.  —  Attitude  towards  the  Bible  and  Christian- 
ity. —  Insinuates  that  Christ  was  a  pantheist.  —  Spirit  of  the  two  contrasted. 

—  Emerson  would  unsettle  all  things.  —  No  philanthropist.  —  Scorn  of  the 
masses.  —  No  moral  distinctions.  —  Better  than  his  theory.  —  Inconsistency 
recommended.  —  The  good  man  forced  to  be  a  hypocrite.  —  Transcendentalism 
not  to  be  judged  by  Emerson.— Christian  faith  the  grand  safeguard.   268—316 

LECTURE  VIII. 

THEISM   WITH   A   PANTHEISTIC   DRIFT. 

Theodore  Parker.  —  Disliked  to  be  called  an  infidel.  —  Did  not  bow  to  Christ  aa 
the  final  authority  in  religion.  —  Affirms  that  Jesus  was  in  error  on  many 
subjects.  —  Calls  Christ  and  the  Bible  idols.  —  Unitarians  denounced  for 
retaining  them.  —  What  Parkerism  finds  in  Christ.  —  The  Old  Testament 
long  since  outgrown.  —  His  idea  of  religious  progress.  —  The  positive  side 
of  Parkerism.  —  Terms  used  to  designate  it.  —  Parker  less  original  than  he 
supposed.  —  Three  factors  of  the  absolute  religion.  —  The  sentiment.  —  The 
idea.  —  The  conception.  —  The  conception  alone  varies.  —  Origin  of  religions. 

—  Their  succession  traced.  —  Parkerism  to  be  superseded.  —  Theory  of  reli- 
gious progress  refuted  by  history.  —  Obscures  the  character  of  God.  —  Weak- 
ens our  basis  of  hope  for  man.  —  The  doctrine  of  redemption  rational. — 
Parker  not  simply  a  theist.  —  Was  he  a  pantheist  ?  —  A  re-statement  of  the 
alternative  of  unbelief. —  Parker  could  not  be  a  positivist.  —  Pantheism  may 
be  mistaken  for  positivism.  —  Parker  not  a  materialist.  —  Denies  the  possi- 
bility of  atheism.  —  Denied  that  he  was  a  pantheist.  —  But  his  definition  is 


CONTENTS.  XI 

inadequate.  —  Acquits  Spinoza.  —  Admits  the  thing  while  disowning  the 
name.  —  More  positive  proofs  of  pantheism.  —  Held  the  Kantian  philosophy. 

—  His  definition  of  God  does  not  exclude  pantheism.  —  All  men  theists.  — 
Misrepresents  pantheists.  —  Identifies  God  with  the  world.  —  With  God  sub- 
ject and  object  are  the  same.  —  The  fault  of  deism.  —  His  view  of  immor- 
tality pantheistic. —  God  immanent  in  all  things. —  He  is  the  substantiality 
of  matter.  —  Men  not  responsible  for  the  religion  they  hold.  —  Different 
religions  a  necessity  of  circumstances.  —  All  the  same  at  bottom.  —  An  endlesa 
succession  of  religions.  —  The  pantheistic  fatalism.  —  Absolute  toleration. — 
No  second  causes.  —  Creation  and  providence  the  same  thing.  —  All  action  in 
nature  God's  action.  —  Held  to  the  mathematical  method.  —  God  impersonal. 

—  Makes  personality  the  same  as  anthropomorphism.  —  God  personal  only  in 
a  rhetorical  sense.  —  Our  conception  of  God  wholly  subjective.  —  God  is  uni- 
versal being.  —  Parker  to  be  judged  by  his  tendency.  —  The  school  of  theism. 

—  His  real  tendency  held  in  check.  —  Character  of  his  scholarship.  —  Relation 
to  the  Unitarians.  —  Some  of  his  strongest  supporters  disowned  his  theology. 

—  Early  statements  of  his  views  most  decided.  —  His  most  scriptural  preach- 
ing best  liked.  —  The  fate  of  philosophy  when  bereft  of  faith  in  Christ.  —  The 
Rock  of  Ages 317—361 


LECTURE   IX. 

THE    STRENGTH   AND   WEAKNESS   OF   PANTHEISM. 

Recapitulation.  —  Authors  excluded  from  this  survey.  —  Refutation  of  panthe- 
ism. —  This  went  along  with  the  exposition.  —  The  clear  statement  of  error 
its  best  refutation.  —  Every  pantheist  has  something  peculiar  to  himself. — 
Wherein  they  agree.  —  Spinoza's  method  cannot  reach  ontology.  —  Same 
fault  in  Fichte  and  Emerson.  —  Function  of  consciousness  mistaken.  —  Dif- 
fers from  the  faculty  of  intuition.  —  What  is  granted  for  argument's  sake.  — 
The  infinity  of  God  said  to  involve  pantheism. —This  argument  assumes 
what  the  pantheist  has  denied.  —  The  essence  of  personality  is  free-will. — 
God  the  only  perfect  person.  —  The  assertion  that  the  mind  can  act  only 
where  it  is.  —  Contradicted  by  our  necessary  beliefs.  —  Whatever  else  fails 
must  insist  on  these.  —  The  duty  of  mental  science  to  these  first  truths.  — 
The  claim  of  comprehensiveness.  —  This  claim  cannot  be  made  good.  —  Im- 
portant truths  which  pantheism  excludes.  —  Gives  precedence  to  an  inferior 
faculty.  —  All  the  faculties  of  the  mind  should  be  recognized.  —  Precedence 
due  the  moral  faculty.  —  The  emphasis  of  the  soul  demands  this.  —  Every 
honest  nature  welcomes  it.  —  The  doctrine  of  the  divine  immanency  said  to 
be  a  source  of  power.  —  Proves  too  much.  —  The  real  power  not  limited  to 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

this  doctrine.  —  Bryant.  —  Thomson.  —  Those  have  as  much  poetical  vantage- 
ground  as  Emerson. —  Source  of  immorality  in  literature.  —  Joaquin  Miller. 

—  Good  men  exposed  to  peril.  —  The  doctrine  of  the  divine  immanency  a 
weakness  of  pantheism.  —  The  argument  from  great  men.  —  Pantheism  can- 
not claim  these.  —  Transcendentalism  can.  —  They  have  escaped  the  perils  of 
that  philosophy.  —  Metaphysics  in  education.  —  Better  than  physical  science. 

—  Opinion  of  Hamilton. —  Scientific  eras  barren  of  literature.  —  The  vaunted 
honors  stolen.  —  Purity  of  life  in  the  teacher  not  a  test  of  his  doctrine.  —  The 
ethical  criterion.  —  Christianity  above  patronage.  —  How  men  may  become 
pantheists.  —  Times  in  which  pantheism  may  be  popular.  —  Legitimates  dis- 
order.—  Our  exposure  to  the  peril.  —  Our  defence.  —  Something  better  than 
pantheism  offers.  —  Conclusion.  —  A  feeling  of  relief. —  Richter's  dream. — 
Pantheism  cannot  reach  what  is  best  in  us.  —  The  prayer  of  Schiller's  father 
surpasses  anything  in  Goethe.  —  Power  of  the  twenty-third  Psalm.  362—398 


UNI7BESIT7 


INTRODUCTION. 


MY  purpose,  in  the  lectures  which  follow,  is  to   Nature  and 

spirit  of  the 

treat  of  popular  infidelity,  —  its  sources,  its  devel-  work- 
opment,  and  its  relation  to  what  is  known  as  the  Biblical 
or  Christian  system.  This  work  is  not  undertaken  in  a 
controversial  or  partisan,  spirit.  I  am  no  dogmatist  or 
polemic,  though  my  point  of  view,  to  which  much  patient 
study  has  led  me,  is  the  supernaturalism  of  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth. It  seemed  needful  to  say  this  at  the  outset,  owing 
to  the  acrimonious  and  denunciatory  style  in  which,  for 
the  most  part,  the  questions  between  Christianity  and  its 
assailants  have  been  hitherto  debated.  The  natural  pre- 
sumption, in  view  of  the  past,  is,  that  whoever  appears  on 
this  field  has  only  entered  into  the  strifes  of  other  zealots ; 
that  he  comes  as  a  warrior  thirsting  for  victims,  and  in  no 
sense  as  an  inquirer.  The  terms  which  this  ancient  de- 
bate has  bequeathed  to  us,  and  to  some  of  which  a  certain 
odium  still  adheres,  cannot  be  now  laid  aside.  They  have 
such  a  currency,  in  the  language  of  the  day,  that  no  can- 
did person  will  charge  it  to  bigotry  or  unfairness,  but 
purely  to  the  necessity  of  the  case,  that  they  continue  to 
be  used.  It  will  be  seen,  in  the  title  which  I  have  chosen 

1 


Z  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

for  this  work,  that  I  regard  many  forms  of  infidelity  as 
half  truths,  at  least  in  their  origin.  Believing  that  the 
human  intellect  naturally  craves  truth,  I  shall  not  easily 
be  persuaded  that  any  body  of  doctrines,  which  has  been 
put  forth  by  earnest  thinkers,  is  unmixed  error;  nor  shall 
I  fail,  so  far  as  the  nature  of  my  undertaking  will  permit, 
to  point  out  the  merits  of  writers  whom,  as  to  their  main 
tenets,  I  may  feel  bound  to  condemn.  Some  of  those 
writers  manifest,  at  times,  a,  calm  spirit  of  inquiry  which 
their  critics  would  do  well  to  emulate.  It  is  not  only  law- 
ful, but  often  greatly  for  our  advantage,  to  learn  from 
those  with  whom  we  disagree.  Truth  has  not  as  yet  re- 
vealed itself  wholly  to  any  finite  mind ;  and  the  remark 
of  Him  who  was  the  Truth,  about  the  beam  in  the  eye 
which  sees  the  mote  in  a  brother's  eye,  is  not  altogether 
inapplicable  to  those  who  are  defending  scriptural  doctrine 
against  the  assaults  of  infidelity. 
Definition  The  word  "  infidelity "  is  so  loosely  used  by 

of  the  word 

"infidelity."  the  writers  and  speakers  of  our  time,  that  one 
might  almost  despair  of  being  able  to  define  it.  And  yet, 
owing  to  this  great  variety  of  usage,  there  seems  all  the 
more  need,  if  we  would  understand  each  other  in  what  is 
to  follow,  that  its  meaning  should  be  brought  within 
some  tolerably  well  settled  limits.  We  certainly 

Charity,  .          .  -IT 

ought,  in  simple  justice,  to  distinguish  between 
systems  of  infidelity  and  the  persons  who  confess  them- 
selves more  or  less  in  accord  with  those  systems.  In  no 
way,  perhaps,  is  it  more  easy  to  overstep  the  bounds  of 
charity,  than  in  identifying  individuals  with  theories  which 
they  cannot  make  up  their  minds  to  reject  utterly,  or  for 
which  they  express  a  partial  sympathy.  The  intercourse 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

of  life  puts  us  in  contact  with  many  men  and  women 
holding  theoretically  to  what  is  called  infidelity  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  schools,  yet  our  personal  acquaintance  with 
whom  convinces  us  that  to  call  them  "infidels  "  would  be 
the  grossest  injustice.  We  are  constantly  running  against 
infidelities,  yet  are  forced  to  own  that  there  is  an  amazing 
scarcity  of  infidels.  This  may  be  accounted  for  And  it8 
in  part  by  the  odium  attaching  to  the  word,  llmlt' 
which  causes  most  persons  to  dread  it,  and  to  resent 
the  application  of  it  to  themselves.  Therefore  our  char- 
ity should  have  a  limit.  Though  many  are  raised  above 
their  theoretical  unbeliefs  by  a  natural  and  acquired  good- 
ness, yet  there  are  those  whom  the  word  "  infidel "  alone 
can  properly  describe  to  us ;  nor  should  we  hesitate  thus 
to  distinguish  such,  wherever  we  find  them. 

The  invidious  use    of  this   term  in  theological  contro- 
versy must  strike  all  fair  minds  as  the  extreme  of  invidious 

•    use  of  the 

meanness  and  cowardly  un manliness.  It  always  word, 
injures  the  cause  in  whose  behalf  it  is  employed.  When 
not  a  confession  of  weakness,  it  is  a  blunder.  All  are 
repelled  by  it,  save  those  whom  prejudice  or  rude  pas- 
sion has  blinded  ;  nor  does  it  influence  even  these,  except 
for  the  time  being.  Though  the  poisoned  arrow  with 
which  a  prostrate  antagonist  seeks  to  wound  his  con- 
queror, though  the  desperate  cry  by  which  he  summons 
to  his  rescue  the  pack  of  ignorant  and  noisy  zealots,  yet 
it  ever  fails  to  deliver  him,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
makes  his  defeat  doubly  disgraceful. 

We  often    have  occasion  to  use   the  phrase  "practical 
infidelity."     These  words,  whether  used    in  the    ,.rac,ti(..,1 
pulpit   or    religious    literature,   point    especially   J 


4  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

to  those  persons  in  the  Christian  church  who  practise  the 
forms  of  a  godly  life  while  destitute  of  its  power.  They 
lack  sincerity  in  their  confessions  and  worship.  Amid  all 
their  attention  to  the  formalities  of  religion,  their  rigid 
orthodoxy  of  opinion,  and  punctilious  regard  for  what  is 
outward  and  ceremonial,  there  is  in  them  an  evil  heart  of 
unbelief.  Inwardly,  and  so  far  as  witnessing  for  Christ 
before  men  goes,  they  are  full  of  heresy  and  alienation 
from  the  truth.  The  fruits  which  they  produce  in  their 
lives  are  no  better  than  if  they  made  no  pretence  of  be- 
lieving the  doctrines  which  Christ  taught.  This  is  the 
infidelity  which  God  visits  with  his  special  abhorrence. 
It  was  the  great  sin  of  the  Jews,  bringing  upon  them  u 
worse  fate  than  overtook  Sodom  and  Gomorrah.  The 
gospel,  with  its  doctrine  of  the  new  birth  and  freedom 
from  external  rites,  was  given  to  rescue  man,  if  possible, 
from  this  demon  of  doubt,  which  is  so  apt  to  creep  into 
the  heart  of  the  formal  religionist. 

sense  in  ^ut  *ne  use  °^  tne  word   "infidelity"   does 

worcHs'now  n(>tj  ln  anv  °^  tne  cases  now  noticed,  touch  the 
subject-matter  which  I  propose  to  treat.  We 
are  concerned  with  the  unbelief  which  has  become  an  in- 
tellectual theory ;  to  the  support  of  which  logic  and  argu- 
ment are  summoned ;  which  assails  the  Christian  system, 
aifects  to  be  in  some  real  sense  its  rival,  and  seeks,  by  dint 
of  philosophical  reasoning,  to  displace  it.  I  should  say 
that  any  person  who  does  not  recognize  the  authority  of 
Christ  as  final  on  all  questions  of  religious  faith,  is,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  largest  charity,  an  infidel.  Even  Profess- 
or Newman,  the  radical  religionist,  is  candid  enough  to 
say,  "  It  is  evident  that  we  must  either  quite  disown  the 


INTRODUCTION.  O 

Gospels,  or  admit  that  Christ  regarded  men  as  impious 
who  did  not  bow  before  him  as  an  authoritative  teacher." 

Strictly  speaking,  an  infidel  is  one  who  has   Etymologi- 
cal mean- 
apostatized.    This  is  according  to  the  etymology  lug. 

of  the  word.  The  first  Christians  used  it,  I  suspect,  as 
those  in  later  times  certainly  did,  to  designate  one  who, 
after  attaching  himself  to  Christ,  had  become  unfaithful,  or 
had  forsaken  him.  A  distinction  is  thus  made  between 
the  infidel  and  such  as  have  never  believed  on  Christ's 
name.  He  is  a  far  baser  person  than  the  pagan,  who, 
having  no  knowledge  of  Christ,  nor  at  any  time  confessing 
him  as  Lord,  cannot  be  charged  with  unfaithfulness  to 
him.  But  we  need  not  use  the  term  in  this  harsh  sense. 
Though  the  infidel  of  to-day  is  one  who  dwells  where 
Christ  is  preached,  and  who  therefore  may  have  fallen 
away  from  the  Christian  faith  into  his  present  state  of 
unbelief,  yet  his  heart  does  not  plead  guilty  to  the  charge 
of  treachery.  He  may  have  a  conviction  of  honesty,  and 
the  approval  of  conscience,  in  what  he  has  done.  All  this 
we  are  ready  to  grant  him  ;  nor  do  we,  in  applying  to  him 
a  term  which  usage  has  made  current,  mean  anything  be- 
yond what  he  is  ready  to  acknowledge ;  namely,  that  he 
has  rejected  Christ  as  the  supreme  authority  in  matters  of 
religious  faith.  Such,  I  take  it,  is  the  most  legitimate 
application  of  the  word  at  present.  I  do  not  propose 
to  employ  it,  save  in  this  perfectly  fair  and  honorable 
method. 

If  the  word  "  infidelity  "  be  odious  to-day,  the  odium  is 
in  the  character  of  those  who  have  been  its  advocates. 
To  be  an  infidel  is  no  more  a  shame  now,  than  to  be  cru- 
cified was  a  shame  in  the  time  of  Christ.  But  Christ  and 


6  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

his  followers  have  made  the  cross  glorious.  If  infidels 
cannot  thus  transfigure  their  reproach,  this  but  proves  the 
TO  be  care-  absurdity  of  their  claims.  Those  who  set  up  no 
even  huts'  claim  in  opposition  to  Christ,  who  acknowl- 

milder  sense,     j         i  •  ,1  i       •        •          v    • 

edge  him  as  the  supreme  authority  in  religion, 
who  accept  his  word  as  that  by  which  any  religious  doc- 
trine is  to  be  judged,  are  improperly  called  infidels.  It, 
is  an  abuse  of  language,  as  well  as  contrary  to  the  "  new 
commandment "  in  the  gospel,  when  the  various  Christian 
bodies  thus  brand  each  other.  Some  of  those  bodies  may 
seem  to  us  to  teach  fatal  error,  and  we  may  conscien- 
tiously refuse  to  have  fellowship  with  them ;  but  so  long 
as  they  make  Christ  their  Master,  we  have  no  good  right 
to  call  them  infidels.  To  misinterpret  the  divine  Teach- 
er's words  is  not  the  same  thing  as  denying  his  authority. 
Men  may  differ  widely  as  to  what  Christ  taught,  —  so 
widely  as  to  be  unable  to  dwell  together 'in  ecclesiastical 
fraternity,  —  and  yet  be  equally  earnest  in  maintaining 
Should  be  tnat  Christ  is  Lord.  Where  this  supremacy  is 
pliedfwRere  not  accorded,  however;  where  any  one  has 

rejected  Christ,  after  full  opportunity  to  know 
him;  and  not  only  that,  but  has  framed  this  his  denial 
into  a  positive  creed,  and  is  seeking  to  establish  it  as  true  by 
what  he  regards  as  rational  argument,  —  there  we  should 
recognize  infidelity,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  He 
has  investigated  and  reflected,  till  he  has  come  to  certain 
conclusions ;  and  those  conclusions  are  entirely  subversive 
of  Christianity  as  an  authoritative  religion.  This  their 
logical  effect  he  sees,  and  not  only  makes  no  effort  to 
avoid  it,  but  stoutly  insists  upon  it.  What  the  treatises 
are,  which  come  within  this  definition,  I  do  not  now  under- 


IXTRODUCTION-.  7 

take  to  say.  The  catalogue  of  modern  infidelities  need 
not  be  given.  Any  list  which  I  might  draw  up  would  be 
regarded  by  some  as  incomplete;  whil«  others  might 
accuse  it  of  injustice,  saying  that  it  included  speculations 
worthy  of  better  company.  It  is  enough  to  have  given  a 
criterion,  —  entirely  fair,  I  think  all  must  admit,  —  by 
which  we  may  each  determine  the  religious  bearing  of  any 
book  or  utterance  that  meets  us.  Whatever  claims  pre- 
eminence over  Christ,  or  denies  to  him  the  supremacy  in 
matters  of  religious  faith,  or  lays  down  propositions  known 
to  be  subversive  of  his  authority,  is  an  infidelity.  In  that 
view  of  it,  although  associated  with  much  that  we  admire, 
and  even  approve,  it  deserves  no  quarter  at  our  hands. 
As  the  disciples  of  Christ,  believing  that  he  spoke  the  ab- 
solute truth,  and  concerned  for  the  well-being  of  men  as 
truly  as  for  his  honor,  we  are  bound  to  unmask  the  in- 
truder, and  battle  against  it  under  its  proper  designation. 

As  to  the  sources  of  these  various  infidelities  Twosouree8 
which  are'aroiind  us,  and  throughout  the  Chris-  of  infidelity- 
tian  world,  one  need  feel  less  hesitation  in  speaking. 
They  seem  to  me  to  be  reducible  to  two  sources  —  Pan- 
theism, represented  by  Spinoza,  and  Positivism,  repre- 
sented by  Comte.  Some  may  be  inclined  to  add  a  third 
source,  namely,  Deism.  But  this  is  hardly  more  than  a 
dependent  form  of  infidelity.  It  rests  on  no  steady  foun- 
dation of  its  own,  but  is  always  falling  away  into  either 
Pantheism  or  Positivism,  where  it  is  not  happily  exalted 
into  Christianity. 

But  even  this  statement  may  be  simplified;  strictiybut 
for,  in  the  last  analysis,  all  forms  of  religious 


one  source. 


HUTEBSITT 


O  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

error  may  be  brought  to  a  single  source  —  the  separation 
of  man  from  God.  It  was  in  the  garden  of  Eden  that 
these  poisonous  waters,  still  polluting  the  earth,  took  their 
rise.  When  man  fell  from  his  Maker's  embrace,  then 
immediately  infidelity  began.  It  is  evident,  since  man 
came  forth  from  God,  that  his  faculties  must  have  acted 
abnormally,  leading  him  astray  constantly  in  all  his 
searches  after  truth,  as  soon  as  he  had  separated  himself 
from  God.  This  may  seem  to  be  a  sweeping  remark ;  for 
it  might  be  said  that  many  persons,  into  whose  thoughts 
the  idea  of  a  God  almost  never  enters,  have  yet  been  suc- 
cessful students  of  nature,  of  history,  of  the  human  mind ; 
have  shown  excellent  judgment  in  matters  of  business, 
and  in  all  that  concerns  the  welfare  of  the  state.  But  this 
latter  remark  seems  to  me  to  need  qualification,  rather 
Effects  of  than  the  other.  If  we  look  at  human  conduct 
the  Fail.  comprehensively,  —  if  we  'consider  it  in  all  its 
relations,  and  follow  it  on  to  its  remoter  issues,  —  we  shall 
find  that  it  is  never  thoroughly  wise  while  acting  indepen- 
dently of  God.  The  statesman  does  not  plan  what  is  best 
for  the  state,  the  reformer  mingles  much  of  evil  with  his 
good,  and  the  most  successful  man  of  business  fails  in 
certain  important  respects  while  not  inspired  and  kept  by 
a  divine  influence.  In  no  partial  sense,  but  in  the  broad- 
est sense,  it  is  true  that  "  the  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  be- 
ginning of  wisdom."  We  cannot  separate  material  inter- 
ests from  spiritual,  or  temporal  from  eternal.  Profitable- 
ness and  ungodliness,  wisdom  and  atheism,  are  never 
joined  together.  The  human  mind  acts  abnormally  on  all 
subjects,  mistaking  error  for  truth,  and  confounding  suc- 
cess with  failure,  as  soon  as  it  has  departed  from  God. 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

The  finite  is  safe  only  in  the  embrace  of  the  infinite. 
"Were  God,  and  man's  relation  to  God,  to  become  the 
central  and  informing  soul  of  all  knowledge  and  all  stud- 
ies," says  Dr.  John  Young,  of  Edinburgh,  "  then  philos- 
ophy would  spring  into  new  life,  and  become  at  once  more 
ennobling  and  more  profound ;  science  would  become 
more  luminous  and  more  quickening;  literature  would 
catch  a  new  glow  and  flush  from  the  breath  of  heaven, 
and  be  more  enkindling  and  more  beauteous;  art  would 
be  radiant  with  a  sweeter,  a  holier,  and  a  diviner  grace. 
It  is  the  most  fatal  of  all  mistakes  to  judge  that  the  lov- 
ing sense  of  God,  in  the  soul,  is  one  which  we  may  have 
or  want,  indifferently.  It  is  an  absolute  necessity  to  our 
being.  Religion  is  not  a  separate  department  of  human 
knowledge  —  a  branch,  like  other  branches  of  human 
inquiry.  It  is  rather  the  all-encompassing  atmosphere,  in 
which,  whatever  be  our  studies  or  works,  we  can  alone 
truly  breathe  and  live ;  the  one  inspiring  influence,  which 
alone  puts  a  soul  into  our  efforts,  and  gives  them  a  divine 
meaning.  Religion  is  the  sum  of  the  whole  inner  nature, 
intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual,  without  which  all  is  ster- 
ile, cold,  and  dark." l 

But  this   primal   source   of  infidelity,  of  all  TWO  oppo- 
site mental 
errors  in  religion,  whether  modern    or  ancient,   tendencies. 

transcends  the  purpose  of  our  present  inquiry.  We  are 
concerned  with  the  two  heads — Pantheism  and  Positiv- 
ism—  into  which  it  has  become  divided.  The  human 
mind,  being  separate  from  God,  wanders ;  and  it  wanders 
in  two  different  paths,  or  by  two  opposite  methods,  ac- 
cording to  certain  inherent  tendencies.  Coleridge  has 

1  '  Light  and  Life  of  Men  » (London  and  New  York,  1800),  pp.  495,  496. 


10  .    HALF    TJJUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

remarked  that  all  men  are  born  either  Aristotelians  or  Pla- 
tonists.  Perhaps  it  would  be  stating  the  case  more  intel- 
ligibly to  some,  to  say  that  all  men  are  born  either  Baconi- 
ans or  Cartesians.  All  who  think  are  a-posteriori  or 
a-priori  thinkers.  They  either  make  the  outer  world  of 
sense  and  experience,  or  the  inner  world  of  consciousness, 
their  starting-point ;  reason  from  effects  to  causes,  or  from 
causes  to  effects.  Emerson  expresses  this  fact  by  say- 
ing, "Mankind  have  ever  been  divided  into  two  sects, 
materialists  and  idealists ;  the  first  class  founding  on  ex- 
perience, the  second  on  consciousness ;  the  first  class 
beginning  to  think  from  the  data  of  the  senses ;  the  sec- 
ond class  perceive  that  the  senses  are  not  final,  and  say, 
the  senses  give  us  representations  of  things,  but  what  are 
the  things  themselves  they  cannot  tell.  The  materialist 
insists  on  facts,  on  history,  on  the  force  of  circumstances, 
and  the  animal  wants  of  man ;  the  idealist  on  the  power 
of  thought  and  of  will,  on  inspiration,  on  miracle,  on  indi- 
vidual culture."1  This  language  overstates  the  distinc- 
tion in  some  particulars,  though  the  brilliant  essayist  was 
right  as  to  the  existence  and  universality  of  the  fact.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  any  thinker  ever  does,  or  ever 
can,  pursue  one  of  these  methods  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
other ;  but  they  are  sufficiently  distinct  to  mark  two  con- 
flicting schools  of  thought,  to  indicate  two  radically  dif- 
ferent intellectual  tendencies  in  men.  "  Not  of  choice," 
says  Dr.  Young,  "  but  in  consequence  of  a  real  necessity, 
occasioned  by  their  individual  structure,  men  are  materi- 
alistic or  spiritualistic,  logical  or  philosophical,  argumen- 
tative or  intuitional,  the  one  and  the  other  alike  being 

i  Miscellanies  (Boston,  1858),  pp.  320,  321. 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

simply  the  effect  of  original  mental  conformation.  They 
limit  themselves  to  the  range  of  the  understanding,  and 
to  what  can  be  submitted  to  its  processes  and  decisions ; 
or  they  love  to  ascend  to  the  region  of  the  supersensual, 
and  covet  intensely  the  higher  revelations  of  a  disciplined 
faith.  The  two  orders  are  ever  ranged  on  opposites,  in 
theology,  in  philosophy,  and  in  real  life.  Respecting  the 
origin  of  the  universe,  the  question  of  a  First  Cause,  the 
being  and  character  of  God,  the  introduction  of  evil  into 
the  universe,  the  nature  of  volition,  the  final  destiny  of 
man,  they  are  always  essentially  divided,  and  are  rightly 
distinguished  as  empiricists  and  transcendentalists." l 
Now,  both  these  tendencies,  which  would  ever  Each  ten- 

'  .  dc-neythe 

proceed  aright  and  harmoniously  in  union  with   source  of  a 

r  f  t         class  of  in- 

God,  being  without  that  inspiration  and  guid-  fidelities. 
ance,  are  Constantly  going  astray.  Thus  it  is  that  each 
tendency  becomes  the  source,  or  creates  the  centre  and 
root,  of  a  distinct  class  of  infidelities.  If  the  mental  ten- 
dency be  transcendental,  it  ultimates  itself  in  Pantheism ; 
if  it  be  empirical,  it  ultimates  itself  in  Positivism.  Such 
I  conceive  to  be,  in  each  case,  the  genesis  of  the  two  oppo- 
site sources  of  modern  infidelity.  All  religious  errors, 
which  are  subversive  of  Christianity  in  their  aim,  have 
either  no  claim  on  our  notice,  do  not  even  deserve  to  be 
refuted,  or  maybe  traced,  to  one  of  these  two  fountains. 
Between  these  two  extremes  the  irreligious  mind  of  the 
race  has  been  ever  swinging,  —  wearily  swinging,  with  a 
pendulous  motion,  while  the  hand  on  the  dial  has  marked 
the  steady  advance  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  Whenever 
the  prevailing  philosophy  of  the  world  has  been  transcen- 

i  Light  and  Life  of  Men,  p.  102. 


1*2  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

dental,  the  prevailing  infidelity  has  been  pantheistic;  and 
when  that  philosophy  has  been  empirical,  the  infidelity  has 
had  in  it  more  or  less"  of  positivism.  Ancient  Buddhism 
is  associated  with  the  philosophy  of  the  senses,  Brahman- 
ism  with  that  of  consciousness.  Descartes  gave  the  a-pri- 
ori  method  to  Europe,  and  out  of  that  method  sprang 
Spinozism ;  Bacon  and  Locke  gave  the  a-posteriori,  which 
was  pushed  forward  into  sensationalism.  Kant  taught  a 
spiritual  philosophy,  and  Hegel  was,  in  some  real  sense, 
his  successor;  the  prevailing  philosophy  of  the  present 
time  is  materialistic,  and  Comtism  .is  the  infidelity  which 
claims  its  protection.  In  Germany,  where  thinking  has 
had  more  to  do  with  ideas  than  with  facts,  pantheism  has 
had  a  prodigious  growth ;  in  France,  where  the  study  of 
what  is  outward  prevails,  positivism  finds  its  home  and 
stronghold.  Infidelity  has  existed  all  along  through  the 
history  of  our  race,  ever  since  man  first  departed  from 
God;  and  it  will  continue  to  exist,  in  every  nation  and 
age,  till  men  are  restored  to  God  in  Christ.  In  ages  and 
countries  where  thought  is  chiefly  concerned  with  the 
material  and  outward,  the  forms  of  infidelity  will  have 
their  ground  in  positivism;  in  those  times  and  places 
where  truth  is  sought  chiefly  in  .consciousness,  pantheism 
will  be  the  informing  spirit  of  unbelief.  One  or  the  other 
of  these  two  yokes  of  bondage  men  will  wear,  until  deliv- 
ered into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 
Scope  of  the  A  full  and  adequate  treatment  of  the  topics 
work.  contemplated  in  these  lectures  would  include, 

therefore, 

I.     A    CRITICAL    HISTORY    OF    PANTHEISM,    WITH    A 

REFUTATION    OF   IT    UPON    PHILOSOPHICAL    GROUNDS  ; 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

II.  A  SIMILAR  HISTORY  OF  POSITIVISM,  WITH  A  LIKE 
REFUTATION;  AND 

III.  A  STATEMENT  OF  THE  MANNER  IN  WHICH  CHRIS- 
TIANITY  MEETS     THAT     HUMAN   WANT   WHICH    THEY   ARE 
FOREVER   FLATTERING    ONLY    TO    DELUDE. 

This  whole  vast  field  is  more  than  I  can  hope  to  ex- 
plore, in  the  series  of  lectures  which  here  follows.  It 
will  be  enough,  and  more  than  I  dare  promise,  if  even 
tolerable  justice  be  done  to  the  first  main  department 
namely,  Pantheism.  And  inasmuch  as  there  is  a  wide 
field  of  examination  to  go  over,  requiring  us  to  eliminate 
and  define  the  errors  which  may  be  classed  under  this 
head,  thus  at  length  preparing  the  way  for  argument 
against  them;  considering,  I  say,  that  we  must  wait  so 
long  without  formally  replying,  while  the  authors  on  trial 
are  allowed  to  speak  for  themselves  in  large  part,  I  deem 
it  proper,  in  the  remainder  of  this  Introduction,  SufT0.e8tion8 
to  make  a  few  suggestions  of  general  import,  m  advance- 
as  to  the  most  effective  methods  of  meeting  and  fore- 
stalling any  forms  of  religious  error. 

1.  In   the  first  place,  the  defenders   of  the   speculative 

~.     .  ITT  and  scien- 

Christian  system  should  not  be  too  ready  to  tific  theories 
condemn,  as  a  form  of  infidelity,  every  new  spec-  prejudged, 
ulation,  or  scientific  theory,  which  may  happen  to  be  put 
forth.  This  premature  judgment  may  be  reversed  by  a 
later  and  more  intelligent  verdict.  The  friends  of  Chris- 
tianity will  then  be  convicted  of  hindering  the  cause  they 
sought  to  forward ;  of  ignorantly  putting  forth  their  hand 
to  steady  the  sacred  ark  where  it  was  in  no  danger.  The 
new  theory  or  speculation  may  be  yet  in  its  infancy,  crude, 


14  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

broached  in  the  tentative  rather  than  the  dogmatic  form. 
If  alarmists  within  the  church  would  be  at  pains  to  know 
the  author  personally,  they  might  find  him  a  devout  and 
reverent  thinker,  as  much  concerned  for  the  honor  of 
Christianity  as  themselves.  Perhaps  he  has  carefully  con- 
sidered the  very  points  at  which  they  stumble,  and  sees  a 
way  of  justifying  them  to  his  Christian  faith  which  has 
not  occurred  to  his  critics.  Why  should  they  stultify 
themselves  by  raising  a  false  alarm  ?  Very  likely  he  only 
puts  his  views  into  the  form  of  an  inquiry  at  first,  and 
leaves  them  at  the  tribunal  of  reason  and  common  sense. 
Why  need  we,  in  our  concern  for  the  Bible,  rush  upon 
them  frantically,  or  blow  our  trumpets  for  a  warning,  be- 
fore those  theories  have  won  a  sure  foothold,  even  in  the 
scientific  or  philosophical  world  ?  When  they  have  passed 
over  that  frontier,  coming  safely  out  of  every  struggle, 
and  surviving  every  attack  on  their  proper  ground,  then 
it  will  be  early  enough  for  us  to  conclude  whether  or 
not  our  batteries  should  open  upon  them.  Multitudes  of 
them  are  overthrown  and  trodden  down,  while  running 
the  gantlet  wholly  outside  of  our  domain;  and  if  here 
and  there  one  escapes,  surviving  the  opposition  of  rival 
theories,  and  overcoming  the  severest  scientific  criticism, 
this  fact  should  be  taken  as  presumptive  evidence  that  it 
comes  to  us,  not  as  an  enemy,  but  as  a  friend ;  for  truth 
cannot  be  the  foe  of  truth. 
Error  not  ai-  Even  where  we  detect  grave  signs  of  error, 

ways  to  be 

denounced,  it  may  be  wiser  to  seek  fellowship  than  to  with- 
draw it.  It  was  Judaism  that  said,  "  Get  thee  out  of  thy 
country,  and  from  thy  kindred ; "  Christianity  says,  "  Go 
ye  into  the  world."  Perhaps  Luther  was  wrong  in  think- 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

ing  that  the  Reformers  could  do  most  for  their  cause  by 
staying  in  the  Papal  church.  Perhaps  they  are  mistaken 
who  think  that  the  churches  of  New  England  lost  ground 
by  withdrawing  from  Arianism  in  Dr.  Channing's  time. 
But  as  long  as  the  honor  of  Christ  will  permit,  we  should 
avoid  driving  any  new  error  into  an  open  declaration  of 
war.  It  may  be  no  more  than  the  pet  delusion  of  a  few 
individuals,  and,  at  the  worst,  will  live  only  while  they 
live,  if  let  alone.  By  assailing  it  we  provoke  it  to  take 
positive  ground ;  at  once  put  its  advocates  out  of  the  reach 
of  our  Christian  influence  ;  enable  it  to  raise  against  us  the 
cry  of  persecution,  which  will  be  sure  to  bring  crowds  of 
curious  and  sympathetic  people  to  its  support ;  and  thus  a 
party  may  be  organized,  through  which  its  influence  will 
be  vastly  widened,  and  prolonged  far  beyond  the  term  of 
its  natural  life.  A  broad  wisdom,  gleaned  from  the  fields 
of  history  and  experience,  admonishes  us  to  brand  no  man 
as  a  teacher  of  infidelity,  till  absolutely  compelled  to  by 
our  loyalty  to  Christ.  Whoever  does  not  insist  on  being 
the  enemy  of  Revealed  Religion,  should  be  esteemed  its 
friend. 

0 

Great  harm  was  done  to  the  cause  of  Christ,   Mistake  re- 

specting1  As- 

when  his  church  condemned,  as  of  infidel  ten-  tronomy. 
dency,  some  of  the  earlier  astronomical  discoveries.  We 
are  amazed  now,  that  the  fathers  of  the  church  should 
make  themselves  a  tribunal  to  judge  the  Copernican  theory, 
and  that  they  should  proceed  to  condemn  it,  declaring  it 
to.  be  a  damnable  heresy.  Not  that  Copernicus  himself 
was  thus  condemned.  Being  one  of  the  devoutest  men  of 
his  times,  living  amidst  powerful  friends  who  wisely  guarded 
his  reputation,  and  not  publishing  his  great  discovery  till 


16  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

just  as  he  died,  he  escaped  ecclesiastical  censure.  It  was 
reserved  for  Galileo,  his  follower  in  the  next  century,  to 
bear  the  Papal  condemnation  ;  by  which  his  name  has  been 
lifted  up,  as  an  everlasting  warning  to  theologians,  not  to 
make  their  own  ignorance  a  throne  of  judgment,  from 
which  to  hurl  anathemas  at  the  novelties  of  science  and 
philosophy. 

Treatment  of  Yet  that  warning  has  not  been  always  heeded. 
0  °sy'  The  blunder  of  those  Romish  doctors  was  re- 
peated as  late  as  the  present  century,  when  the  theories  of 
geologists  began  to  challenge  attention.  How  many  stu- 
dents of  the  new  science  were  thus  repelled,  from  what 
they  mistook  as  the  narrowness  and  bigotry  of  Christianity, 
until  they  became  open  opposers  of  the  church  and  its 
teachings,  we  shall  know  only  in  the  day  of  the  revelation 
of  all  things.  It  is  not  these  denunciatory  champions,  who 
seem  to  be  born  with  the  scent  of  religious  error  in  their 
nostrils,  that  Christianity  needs.  They  do  much  harm  to 
her  sacred  cause.  Such  men  as  Thomas  Chalmers  are  the 
rather  our  examples.  When  the  ministers  of  Scotland 
were  beginning  to  raise  their  hue  and  cry  against  geology, 
he  exclaimed,  "This  is  a  false  alarm.  The  writings  of 
Moses  do  not  fix  the  antiquity  of  the  globe.  If  they  fix 
anything  at  all,  it  is  only  the  antiquity  of  the  species." 
These  great  words  produced  a  revolution,  and  prevented  a 
revolution.  They  were  caught  up,  and  shouted  throughout 
the  United  Kingdom,  till  geologists  saw  they  had  no  cause 
to  rebel  against  the  church,  and  the  church  saw  she  had 
no  occasion  for  denouncing  geology.  It  was  this  noble 
stand  which  made  Chalmers  the  champion,  at  once,  of  both 
the  new  science  and  Christianity.  From  that  time  forth 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

geology  was  mainly  a  Christian  science  in  Great  Britain ; 
whereas,  but  for  that  grand  utterance  and  leadership,  it 
would,  from  all  that  now  appears,  have  speedily  fallen  into 
infidel  hands. 

At  the  present  day  there  is  a  controversy,   caution 

respecting 

going  on  in  the  scientific  world,  respecting  Darwinism, 
which  the  friends  of  Christianity  need  to  beware.  I 
refer  to  the  Darwinian  theory  of  the  origin  of  species 
through  natural  selection,  which  argues  that  all  the  animal 
races  now  on  the  earth  have  been  developed  out  of  one 
central  mass  of  life ;  and  its  opposing  theory,  held  by 
Agassiz  among  others,  according  to  which  there  are  many 
such  centres,  so  distinct  in  the  near  past  that  even  the  races 
of  men  could  not  all  have  descended  from  a  single  pair. 
The  nature  of  this  controversy,  and  its  attitude  towards 
certain  portions  of  the  Bible,  are  thus  stated  by  Professor 
Huxley :  "  The  hypotheses  respecting  the  origin  of  species 
which  profess  to  stand  on  a  scientific  basis,  and,  as  such, 
alone  demand  serious  attention,  are  of  two  kinds.  The 
one,  the  'special  creation'  hypothesis,  presumes  every 
species  to  have  originated  from  one  or  more  stocks,  these 
not  being  the  result  of  the  modification  of  any  other  form 
of  living  matter,  or  arising  by  natural  agencies,  but  being 
produced,  as  such,  by  a  supernatural  creative  act.  The 
other,  the  so-called  '  transmutation '  hypothesis,  considers 
that  all  existing  species  are  the  result  of  the  modification 
of  pre-existing  species,  and  those  of  their  predecessors,  by 
agencies  similar  to  those  which,  at  the  present  day,  pro- 
duce varieties  and  races,  and  therefore  in  an  altogether 
natural  way ;  and  it  is  a  probable,  though  not  a  necessary 
consequence  of  this  hypothesis,  that  all  living  beings  have 
2 


18  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

arisen  from  a  single  stock.  The  doctrine  of  special 
creation  owes  its  existence  very  largely  to  the  supposed 
necessity  of  making  science  accord  with  the  Hebrew  cos- 
mogony; but  it  is  curious  to  observe  that,  as  the  doctrine 
is  at  present  maintained  by  men  of  science,  it  is  as  hope- 
lessly inconsistent  with  the  Hebrew  view  as  any  other 
hypothesis."  l  The  relative  merits  of  the  two  theories,  as 
judged  by  our  scriptural  standards,  are  certainly  well 
stated  in  the  closing  words  of  this  paragraph,  though 
Huxley  is  inexcusably  reckless  in  assuming  that  he  knows 
precisely  what  the  Hebrew  view,  as  he  calls  it,  was.  It  is 
plain  that  those  who  adhere  to  the  common  interpretation 
of  the  first  of  Genesis  must  reject  both  these  theories. 
When  they  applaud  Agassiz  for  some  hard  blow  given  to 
Darwin,  they  ought  not  to  forget  that  Agassiz  is  no  cham- 
pion of  theirs,  but  quite  as  hostile  to  them  as  his  opponent. 
And  are  we  yet  sure  that  either  of  them  is  hostile  to  the 
inspired  record,  so  much  as.to  what  translators  and  inter- 
preters have  made  that  record  say?  One  or  the  other  of 
the  two  theories  may  be  destined  to  prevail ;  and  we  can 
afford  to  wait  undisturbed,  while  the  battle  goes  forward 
in  the  outer  court  of  science,  not  taking  up  our  weapons 
till  either  "  special  creation,"  or  "  transmutation,"  having 
been  declared  victor  there,  shall  assail  the  sanctuary  of  our 
religious  faith.  Why  should  we  excommunicate  zoology, 
even  after  its  own  friends  are  at  peace,  so  long  as  it  is  sure 
that  our  sacred  philology  has  yet  a  great  deal  to  learn  ?  If 
it  becomes  the  settled  creed  of  the  scientific  world,  as  few 
anticipate,  I  suspect,  that  the  races  of  men  sprang  from 

1  Lay  Sermons  and  Addresses  (Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York,  1871),  pp.  279,^0. 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

several  distinct  origins,  the  laws  of  language  may  be  trusted 
to  show  us  that  no  word  of  the  Bible,  claiming  to  come 
from  God,  contradicts  that  creed.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
if  some  improved  form  of  Darwinism  becomes  established, 
as  is  now  extremely  probable,  the  task  of  the  Bible  inter- 
preter will  be  comparatively  easy.  I  have  no  expectation 
that  this  Development  theory  will  be  proved  true,  as  it  is 
held  and  applied  by  some  of  its  advocates.  But  if  it  fore- 
shadows a  natural  truth,  respecting  the  origin  of  the  human 
race,  which  may  yet  be  brought  out  by  scientific  research, 
we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  that  truth,  whatever 
it  is,  will  not  contradict,  but  establish  the  words  of  God. 
We  should  not  too  hastily  assail  it,  even  though  it  may 
have  seemed  thus  far  to  be  against  us  ;  remembering  —  as 
Coleridge  so  nobly  says  —  that  an  error  is  sometimes  the 
shadow  of  a  great  truth  yet  below  the  horizon.  Let  us 
not  bequeath  to  the  future  a  fresh  instance  of  theologi- 
cal blundering,  compelling  those  after  us  to  look  back  on 
our  treatment  of  zoology  with  as  much  shame  as  we 
now  look  back  on  the  ado  made  about  geology  and  as- 
tronomy. 

It  has  been  too  much  the  fashion  to  charge  Fondness  of 

Clergymen 

upon  the  clergy  this  prejudice  against  science  for  Science, 
which  I  now  deprecate.  In  one  view  of  the  case  there 
could  hardly  be  a  greater  injustice.  Whatever  may 
have  been  true  in  the  past,  no  class  of  men  are  now  more 
tolerant  of  scientific  theories,  or  give  them  more  respectful 
attention.  Suspicion  is  not  the  rule,  but  the  exception, 
and  rarely  appears,  save  in  those  least  enlightened.  Every 
new  truth  in  science  is  another  pillar  of  theology.  It  can 


20  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

be  shown  that  even  the  persecutions  of  Galileo  were  not 
due  to  the  clergy  so  much  as  to  the  jealousy  of  certain 
other  philosophers ;  and  a  full  knowledge  of  all  the  facts 
would  no  doubt  prove,  in  similar  cases,  that  wrong  has 
been  done  in  representing  Christian  ministers  as  hostile 
to  scientific  pursuits.  They  show  an  interest  in  such 
studies  which  naturalists  have  been  slow  to  reciprocate. 
They  have  done  more  than  any  other  class  to  familiarize 
the  public  with  the  best  science  of  the  times.  And  I  am 
happy,  in  making  these  statements, 'to  find  that  no  less  a 
personage  than  Professor  Tyndall  is  ready  to  confirm  them. 
What  he  says  of  the  clergy  of  England,  and  especially  of 
the  clergy  of  London,  is  still  more  emphatically  true  of 
the  better  part  of  the  profession  in  America.  "  They  have 
nerve  enough,"  says  Tyndall,  addressing  his  brother  scien- 
tists, "  to  listen  to  the  strongest  views  which  any  among  us 
would  care  to  utter ;  and  they  invite,  if  they  do  not  chal- 
lenge, men  of  the  most  decided  opinions  to  state  and  stand 
by  those  opinions  in  the  open  court.  No  theory  upsets 
them.  Let  the  most  destructive  hypothesis  be  stated  only 
in  the  language  current  among  gentlemen,  and  they  look  it 
in  the  face.  They  forego  alike  the  thunders  of  heaven  and 
the  terrors  of  the  other  place  ;  smiting  the  theory,  if  they 
do  not  like  it,  with  honest  secular  strength."  Such  I  be- 
lieve to  be  the  feeling  of  the  best  Christian  ministers,  at 
least  in  the  present  age.  By  continuing  to  cherish  this 
spirit  they  will  be  kept  from  the  mistakes  of  former  times 
—  the  mistakes  of  a  few  men,  not  always  clergymen,  which 
have  been  made  in  such  circumstances,  and  so  thrust 
forward,  that  the  whole  church  has  had  to  bear  the 
odium. 


INTRODUCTION.  21 


It  is  altogether  unworthy  of  Christians  at  this 
day,  be  they  clergymen  or  laymen,  to  be  dis- 
tin-bed  about  the  progress  of  science,  or  to  Stion. 
attempt  to  discredit  it  with  denunciation  and  sneers. 
In  regard  to  Darwinism,  what  force  can  stale  jests 
about  ancestral  apes  and  tadpoles  have,  from  those  who 
confess  to.  being,  in  their  mortal  make,  brothers  of  the 
worm  ?  All  in  us  that  can  perish  was  taken  out  of  the  same 
ground  from  which  they  came  forth  ;  is  no  less  dust  than 
the  reptile  we  bruise  with  our  heel,  and  to  the  dust  it  shall 
return.  We  sow  not  that  body  that  shall  be.  There  is  a 
natural  body,  and  there  is  a  spiritual  body.  Who  knows 
but  the  researches  of  zoology  may  yet  so  enlighten  our 
criticism  and  exegesis,  that  we  can  fearlessly  say,  speaking 
of  that  natural  body,  The  writings  of  Moses  do  not  fix 
the  antiquity  of  man  ;  if  they  fix  anything,  it  is  only  the 
time  when,  by  the  inbreathing  of  the  spirit  of  God,  he 
became  an  immortal  and  morally  responsible  being  ?  Then 
the  discovery  of  lake-dwellings  in  -Europe,  and  of  human 
remains  in  ancient  caves  and  geological  formations,  such 
as  have  been  adduced  by  Lyell  and  others,  will  cease  to 
hold  any  hostile  attitude  towards  the  Christian  revelation. 
Certainly  we  shall  not  give  up  anything  by  taking  the 
simple  ground  that  the  Scriptures  were  not  meant  to  teach 
zoology,  —  to  give  us  the  natural  history  of  a  race  which 
is  crushed  before  the  moth.  Certainly  we  shall  keep  all 
that  is  essential  to  the  integrity  of  our  faith,  by  simply 
maintaining  that  the  divine  oracles  are  concerned  with  that 
spirit,  made  in  the  image  of  God,  which  is  his  child,  and 
which,  through  disobedience,  has  fallen  away  from  his 
fatherly  embrace.  Herein  are  the  true  glory  and  eternal 


22  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  THUTH. 

peril  of  man.     What  science  has  to  do  with  is  vanity;  it 
wastes  away  with  the  grass  and  flowers,  and  the  places  which 


Jal   '1*"  kn6W   ifc    sha11    kllOW    it(    DO    m°re'      That    divine 


Senco.  likeness  it  was,  not  this  frail  tenement,  which 
died  in  Adam  ;  wrhich  has  lain  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins, 
all  through  the  long  generations  ;  Avhich  is  made  alive  in 
Christ,  and  which,  living  and  believing  in  him,  shall  never 
die.  We  need  have  no  fear  of  zoology  while  it  stays 
within  the  range  of  natural  law;  we  may  but  immortalize 
our  own  ignorance,  and  degrade  our  cause,  by  assaulting  it 
in  the  name  of  Revelation  ;  it  can  never  reach  the  truth 
of  a  spiritual  creation,  to  which  our  consciousness  testifies, 
and  which  is  the  citadel  of  the  Christian  faith  ;  and,  by 
not  disowning  it,  but  throwing  around  it  the  warm  atmos- 
phere of  a  brotherly  interest  and  charity,  we  may  save  both 
it  and  ourselves. 

reformpre-  ^"  ^n  ^e  secon(^  place,  we  may  meet  or  fore- 
deSty.infl  Sta^  manv  religious  errors  of  our  times  by  own- 
ing all  true  charities  and  reforms  about  us  as  branches  of 
the  one  great  work  committed  to  the  Christian  church. 
The  rise  and  progress  of  not  a  few  infidel  tendencies,  all 
along  in  Christian  history,  may  be  easily  traced.  There  is, 
in  almost  every  instance,  a  natural  history  of  the  revolt, 
which  bears  a  striking  lesson  for  us.  Certain  philanthrop- 
ical  movements  have  begun  in  the  church,  or  under  its 
immediate  notice.  Where  else  did  they  ever  begin  ?  The 
leading  membership,  perhaps  also  the  ministry,  watched 
Natural  his-  the  new  development  with  a  disturbed  feeling. 

tory  of  infi- 

del reforms.  It  jostled  opinions  they  had  long  held,  —  so  long 
as  for  that  reason  to  believe  them  true.  The  rising  charity 
or  reform  found  its  more  ready  advocates  among  the  incon- 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

spicuous  and  less  refined  of  the  brethren.  Might  not  those 
who  seemed  to  be  somewhat  lose  their  prestige,  and  be- 
come followers  or  only  equals  where  they  had  been  wont 
to  lead,  if  they  gave  place  to  the  innovation  ?  That 
control  which  they  had  enjoyed  till  it  seemed  to  them  a 
natural  right,  depended  on  keeping  all  things  as  they  were. 
There  might  be  a  Christian  spirit  in  some  of  these  philan- 
thropists, it  was  admitted ;  possibly  they  were  of  that 
open-minded,  unprejudiced  class  of  men  who,  even  in  the 
time  of  Christ,  welcomed  truths  which  the  learned  would 
not  receive.  But  they  gradually  acquired  a  habit  of  for- 
wardness in  the  church,  wholly  out  of  keeping  with  their 
former  modesty  ;  and  they  had  a  blunt  way  of  stating  new 
views,  out  of  season  oftener  than  in  season,  which  neither 
pleased  delicate  ears,  nor  became  the  place  where  all  should 
be  done  decently  and  in  order.  Under  this  strong  temp- 
tation the  damaging  step  was  taken.  That  new  enter- 
prise, the  child  of  Christian  impulse,  was  voted  a  mis- 
chievous intruder;  was  disowned,  frowned  upon,  requested 
to  take  itself  out  of  the  way.  The  attempt  was  made  to 
soothe  the  feelings  of  those  who  had  thus  been  wounded, 
by  assuring  them  that  no  doubt  they  were  right  in  their 
motives.  They  were  only  a  little  too  fast.  It  would  be 
wiser  in  them  to  wait  God's  time,  or  till  society  should  be 
ripe  for  their  enterprise.  This,  however,  so  far  from 
quenching  the  flame,  was  but  adding  fresh  fuel  to  it.  For, 
these  aggrieved  brethren  justly  argued,  how  is  society 
ripened  for  any  reform  save  by  constant  hearing  of  it  ?  or 
how  does  God  make  known  his  time,  if  not  by  laying  a 
necessity  on  the  hearts  of  his  people  ?  Such  are  the  evil 
devices  by  which,  in  instances  sadly  numerous,  the  church 


24  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

has  alienated  her  own  children,  and,  like  the  god  in  pagan 

mythology,  sought  to  devour  them. 

i  u  fidelity  But  while  the  church  has  been  displaying  this 

welcomes 

those  whom   centrifugal  force  within  herself,  there  have  risen, 

the  church 

repels.  on  the  border-land  between  her  and  the  world, 

certain  rallying-points  for  these  same  discarded  philan- 
thropies. There  the  disowned  and  ostracised  brethren 
meet,  tell  the  story  of  their  persecutions  at  home,  and  form 
new  alliances  fbT'the  common  advantage  and  safety. 
Shrewd  observers,  men  of  ability  and  ambition,  who  are 
seeking  a  constituency,  and  who  bear  the  church  no  love, 
here  begin  to  take  up  the  injured  cause.  These  leaders, 
going  too  far  in  their  tirades  against  Christianity,  repel  the 
more  devout  or  timid  of  their  new  followers,  who  flee 
back  into  the  church  from  what  they  regard  as  a  half-way 
house  to  infidelity.  But  though  returning  themselves,  they 
do  not  bring  with  them  the  cause  for  which  they  went  out. 
That  stays  among  those  with  whom  they  found  temporary 
refuge.  Such  is  the  way,  briefly  told,  in  which  we  are 
often  furnished  with  that  strange  and  monstrous  spectacle, 
the  work  of  the  church  ostensibly  going  forward  under 
infidel  auspices ;  Christ's  enemies,  apparently,  saving  him 
from  his  friends.  If  the  good  man  had  not  been  asleep, 
the  spoiler  had  not  broken  up  his  house.  People  look  on 
the  outward  appearance ;  and  the  church  has  not  avoided 
the  appearance  of  evil,  while  these  unbelievers  seem  to  be 
carrying  out  the  Saviour's  express  commands. 
The  church  Thus  it  is  that  the  infidelity  which  might  have 

not  inno- 
cent, been  forestalled,  springs  forth  and  thrives.     We 

must  confess,  in  looking  over  the  history  of  the  church, 
that  Christians  have  many  times  abandoned   their  o wn 


INTRODUCTION.  25 

arsenals  to  their  foes.  Christianity  has  furnished  to  infi- 
dels the  weapons  with  which  they  have  assailed  Chris- 
tianity. The  enemy,  watching  for  occasion  against  our 
cause,  did  not  fail  to  strike  when  the  occasion  was  given. 
Identifying  the  Bible  with  those  who  professed  to  be 
builded  together  on  it,  he  could  readily  make  it  abhorrent 
to  undiscrirninating  minds.  Did  churchmen  find  argu- 
ments in  the  Bible  in  favor  of  systems  of  injustice?  Did 
they  quote  its  words  on  the  side  of  slavery,  as  favoring 
the  indulgence  of  appetite  in  strong  drinks,  against  efforts 
of  woman  to  improve  -her  condition?  This  was  just  the 
opportunity  which  the  wary  adversary  sought.  He  took 
their  interpretation  of  the  Book  for  the  Book  itself.  Their 
commentary  on  divine  truth  was  the  war-club  with  which 
he  assailed  that  truth. 

We  who  are  Christian  believers  ought  not  to  should  avoid 
allow  ourselves  to  be  thus  driven  into  a  false  tion.h 
position.  It  is  better  to  stay  in  the  church,  and  bear 
much  opposition  from  our  own  brethren,  than  yield  up  the 
sword  of  truth  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  All  real 
charities  are  the  children  of  Christianity.  Where  they 
are  we  have  a  right  to  be,  and  ought  to  be.  We  may  be 
suspected,  avoided,  and  threatened  for  a  time,  by  those 
Avho  make  their  own  traditions  the  sole  criterion  of  truth, 
but  if  we  save  these  charities  from  falling  into  infidel 
hands,  —  if  we  keep  them  safely  housed,  folded  within  the 
fold  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  breathing  there  a  more  con- 
genial atmosphere  than  they  can  find  without,  —  our  reward 
shall  not  be  always  wanting.  Then  religious  error  will 
have  no  chance  to  clothe  itself  in  the  garments  of  truth. 
We  shall  keep  those  garments  where  they  belong.  Then 


26  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

infidelity  will  not  be  able  to  steal  from  us  that  charm 
which  gives  it  its  power.  Then  Christianity  will  not 
repel,  but  attract,  those  who  are  enlisted  in  any  cause  of 
good  will  to  men.  Then  it  will  be  seen  with  a  clearness 
which  none  can  gainsay,  will  shine  forth  with  a  brightness 
from  which  infidelity  shall  flee  confounded,  that  faith  in 
Christ,  and  the  fellowship  of  his  gospel,  are  the  way  to  all 
that  is  loving,  or  just,  or  kind  between  man  and  man. 
The  church  has  only  to  be  true  to  her  divine  Founder, 
walking  in  his  own  blessed  footsteps  of  beneficence,  and 
occupying  all  the  ground  that  is  hers  by  the  terms  of  her 
great  commission,  and  infidelity,  shut  out  upon  the  bleak 
and  barren  rock  where  it  was  born,  will  soon  starve  or 
freeze  to  death. 

Duty  of  the  ^'  ^n  ^ie  ^hd  place,  those  who  are  called 
pulpit.  to  preach  toe  gospel  can  do  much  to  prevent 

the  growth  of  religious  error,  by  compelling  thoughtful 
persons  to  respect  them  as  men  of  culture  and  power.  I 
offer  this  remark  partly  as  a  balance  to  what  has  just  been 
said.  Whatever  Christian  ministers  may  do  on  the  plane 
of  common  charity,  they  should  strive  to  perform  their 
especial  work  with  a  masterly  hand.  Hard  study  and 
thinking,  which,  after  all,  are  the  true  secret  of  intellectual 
power,  must  nerve  them  daily,  or  their  grasp  on  the  better 
class  of  minds  will  be  neither  strong  nor  permanent.  If 
Paul  had  wished  to  teach  Timothy  how  to  save  men  from 
infidelity,  he  could  have  written  nothing  better  than  the 
charge,  "  Let  no  man  despise  thee."  It  should  be  said, 
however,  that  the  power  of  the  pulpit,  in  this  respect,  does 
not  rest  altogether  with  the  ministry.  Congro- 


tions  must 

co-operate,     gations  are  largely  responsible.     -Not  all  of  them 


INTRODUCTION.  27 

will  bear,  without  restiveness,  such  a  style  of  preaching  as 
would  satisfy  more  thoughtful  listeners.  Instead  of  mak- 
ing the  preacher  feel  that  he  must  exert  himself  to  write 
up  to  their  capacity,  they  are  constantly  tempting,  and 
almost  dragging  him  down  to  a  lower  level.  They  pack 
the  house  of  God  with  a  miscellaneous  crowd,  who  come, 
not  to  be  instructed,  not  to  grapple  with  themes  which  tax 
the  attention  and  reason,  that  their  moral  nature  may 
be  profoundly  and  healthfully  aroused,  but  who  must  be 
amused,  and  superficially  excited  in  such  a  way  as  shall 
incline  them  to  come  again.  The  preacher's  office  is  thus 
made  a  kind  of  advertising  agency,  in  the  interest  of 
those  who  own  the  pews  and  pay  the  parish  expenses. 
He  cannot  be  a  growing  man,  in  any  worthy  sense ;  nor  is 
he  allowed  to  practise,  but  must  neglect,  and  gradually 
forget,  those  deeper  investigations  of  truth  which  alone 
win  the  respect  of  the  intelligent,  and  which  all  men  need 
to  have  pressed  on  their  attention,  whether  they  think  so 
or  not.  There  should  be  an  atmosphere  of  intellectual 
vigor  around  the  minister,  which  shall  not  only  stimulate 
him,  but  compel  the  sluggish  and  ill-disciplined  among  his 
hearers  to  exert  their  latent  powers.  Thus  alone  can  the 
weak  be  made  strong,  or  the  strong  who  are  of  the  oppo- 
site party  have  any  chance  to  be  convinced.  On  this 
score,  thanks  to  a  faithful  ministry  and  their  earnest 
flocks,  we  find  much  to  honor  in  the  Puritan  pulpit  of 
New  England.  Wendell  Phillips,  the  distinguished  pop- 
ular orator,  once  confessed  to  a  friend  that  Dr.  Ne^Y  Eno. 
Lyman  Beecher  taught  him  how  to  argue.  In-  to^M-om* 
fidels  went  to  hear  Nathaniel  Emmons  preach, 
not  because  they  liked  his  doctrines,  but  because,  in  the 


28  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

handling  of  them,  he  showed  himself  to  be  a  master. 
Preachers  of  this  stamp  were  wont  to  reason  till  their 
hearers  trembled.  Nor  were  those  hearers  repelled ;  but, 
delighting  in  sermons  which  taxed  their  powers  of  thought, 
they  were  drawn,  as  by  a  spell,  to  the  ever  fresh  displays 
of  intellectual  strength.  Such  preaching  made  its  adver- 
saries ashamed,  drew  a  charmed  circle  about  those  who 
took  pleasure  in  profound  thinking  and  sound  logic.  They 
had  no  inducement  to  wander  off  after  the  teachers  of 
scepticism.  Their  religious  doubts  were  not  a  matter  on 
which  they  set  any  great  value,,  but,  at  the  best,  only 
secondary.  What  they  craved,  and  must  have,  as  what 
alone  almost  all  doubters  are  ever  earnest  about,  was 
mental  food  and  quickening.  They  were  not  restive,  nor 
was  their  sceptical  bias  strengthened.  The  germs  of  infi- 
delity in  them  could  not  grow,  having  nothing  to  feed  upon, 
while  they  were  held  by  this  magic  power  of  argument. 
Though  they  came  to  scoff,  not  unfrequently  they  left  to 
pray,  being  awed  into  a  respect  which  deepened  to  godly 
sorrow,  faith,  and  repentance  not  .to  be  repented  of.  A 
Effect  of  a  jejune,  slipshod  style  of  thinking  in  the  pulpit, 
weak  pulpit.  though  careless  heads  like  it,  and  fill  the  news- 
papers with  praises  of  it,  can  never  win  these  higher  vic- 
tories. The  same  stale  thoughts,  however  variously  the 
changes  be  rung  on  them,  and  though  they  be  set  off  with 
an  odd  text,  many  scraps  of  poetry,  and  humorous  allu- 
sions, will  not  go  down,  Sabbath  after  Sabbath,  with  really 
sensible  men.  The  multitude  of  those  who  desire  simply 
to  be  put  on  good  terms  with  themselves,  may  increase ; 
but  another  class,  serious-minded  though  inclined  to  doubt, 
will  scatter  away  into  solitude,  or  where  there  is  some 


INTRODUCTION.  29 

appearance  of  intellectual  life.  " These  crudities  and  ex- 
travagances," say  they,  "are  not  what  we  come  to  the 
house  of  God  for.  Empty  buckets,  forever  going  into  the 
well  and  fetching  nothing  up,  do  not  meet  our  case. 
Whatever  interest  we  may  have  in  religious  discussions, 
our  time  is  valuable ;  nor  do  we  wish  to  put  ourselves  too 
much  under  the  influence  of  such  an  intellectual  standard, 
avoiding  weak  preachers  just  a.s  we  do  weak  books,  lest 
our  own  standard  of  style  and  thought  should  be  uncon- 
sciously lowered."  Thus  it  is  that  some  of  the  best  minds, 
in  search  of  a  high  culture,  though  doubtful  respecting  the 
Christian  faith,  are  repelled  till  they  quit  the  church  to  go 
where  their  minds  shall  at  least  get  some  sort  of  nutriment. 
Men  thus  repelled  fall  an  easy  prey  to  the  Loadinfr  jna_ 
higher  forms  of  infidelity.  They  often  become  dcls> 
leading  propagators  of  religious  error.  Or  if  kept  from 
this  by  some  absorbing  pursuit,  their  withdrawal  from 
Christian  relations  tells  against  the  truth,  and  serves  to 
point  the  sneer  of  the  open  opposer.  We  are  not  to  be 
servile  imitators  of  those  who  triumphed  in  a  past  age. 
Very  likely  the  style  of  preaching  which  prevailed  then 
would  be  unsuited  to  the  present  times.  We,  HOW  the  ex- 

•  11-  •  i  iji-ency  is  to 

whom  Christ  is  now  calling  to  give  the  gospel  be  met. 
to  men,  should  serve  our  own  age  as  the  faithful  of  other 
days  served  theirs.  We  need  to  be  like  them  chiefly  in 
knowing  the  habits  of  mind,  the  literature,  the  science,  the 
theology  amidst  which  we  live;  need  to  understand  the 
present  spirit  and  tone  of  all  thinking,  and  catch  the 
enthusiasm  of  our  great  forerunners,  so  as  to  meet  error 
effectually  and  wield  the  truth  with  power.  Therefore, 
beyond  any  collateral  good  which  he  may  seek  to  acconi- 


30  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

plish,  the  preacher  should  strive  to  make  men  respect  him 
in  his  sacred  office.  The  overshadowing  fact  in  his  min- 
istry should  be,  not  that  he  is  active  in  the  charities  and 
philanthropies  of  his  time,  but  that  he  brings  home  to 
men's  hearts,  with  an  honest  strength  which  they  can- 
not resist,  the  gospel  of  the  Son  of  God.  This  must  be 
his  grand  business,  and  no  popular  demand  must  hinder 
him  from  consecrating  to  it  all  his  energies.  Pastors  of 
churches  can  show  their  sympathy  with  reforms  without 
becoming  pack-horses  for  all  the  societies  which  propose 
to  aid  or  relieve  somebody  or  something.  They  can  show 
a  tender  interest  in  every  parishioner,  a  good  will  towards 
the  public  enterprises  of  the  day,  love  for  their  friends,  a 
kind  regard  for  the  sick,  the  sorrowing,  the  poor  of  the 
outlying  districts,  without  becoming  ministerial  vagabonds. 
Let  some  one  else  do  the  canvassing  for  needy  colleges 
and  theological  schools,  for  churches  unable  to  pay  their 
debts,  and  mission  societies  whose  treasuries  are  empty. 
It  is  not  reason,  said  the  apostles  at  the  time  of  Pen- 
tecost, that  Christ's  ministers  should  leave  the  word  of 
God,  and  serve  tables.  Deacons  are  appointed  to  the 
offices  of  parochial  charity  —  a  fact  which  must  be  em- 
phasized, and  made  to  cover  as  much  ground  as  possible, 
or  what  chance  can  ministers  have,  in  an  age  of  great 
mental  activity,  to  magnify  their  calling?  They  should  be 
free  to  act  upon  their  own  deep  conviction  that  they  are 
nothing  while  they  are  not  preachers  of  the  gospel.  This 
is  the  necessity  which  the  Spirit,  if  he  ever  called  them  to 
their  work,  laid  on  them  at  the  beginning.  And  woe  unto 
them  if  they  preach  not  the  gospel ;  if  they  do  not  so 
preach  it  as  to  make  it  respected ;  so  as  to  silence  the 


INTRODUCTION.  31 

gainsayer;  so  as  to  hold  sturdy  thinkers  firmly  to  the 
truth,  giving  them  no  occasion  to  wander  from  it,  till  they 
shall  be  convinced  that  it  is  the  only  bread  which  they 
can  eat  and  never  hunger. 

4.     In  the  fourth  place,  Christ's  followers  may   The  spirit 

J     of  Christ  in 

do  much  to  prevent  the  rise  and  spread  of  infi-  iiis  people 

our  mam 

delity,  by  proving  to  men  that  their  discipleship  reliance, 
is  not  prompted  by  selfishness  or  self-seeking,  but  is  purely 
a  filling  up  of  the  blessed  ministry  to  others  which  Christ 
began.  Let  it  appear  to  the  unbelieving  that  we  are  in 
nothing  their  beneficiaries,  but  in  all  things  their  benefac- 
tors. Christ  said,  "  I  am  among  you  as  one  that  serveth ; " 
and  again,  "  I  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  min- 
ister." God  reigns  over  the  universe  because  he  is  love  ; 
it  is  being  the  servant  of  all,  as  no  other  can  be,  that 
makes  him  Lord  of  all.  In  such  royal  and  godlike  ser- 
vice, according  to  the  capacity  given  us,  is  the  hiding  of 
our  strength  —  the  main  secret  of  any  ability  we  may 
hope  for  to  make  the  truth  mightier  than  error.  "Do 
good,  hoping  for  nothing  again,''  is  the  sublime  precept, 
"  and  ye  shall  be  like  your  Father  in  heaven." 

As  regards  the  ministry,  though  we  who  preach      Duty  of 
the  gospel  may  live  of  the  gospel,  yet  we  should, 
like  Paul,  suffer  loss  rather  than  have  our  glorying  made 
void.     We  should  preach  as  debtors  to  all  men,  and  not  as 
those  who  look  for  a  reward.     It  should  be  our  boast  that 
we  have  no  hire  but  souls  ;  that  the  slight  provision  which 
we  receive  for  present  needs  is  not  of  the  nature  of  pay,  so 
much  as  an  expression  of  gratitude  on  the  part  of  those 
who"  contribute  it;  that  our  entire  ministry  is  a  witness 
to  all  men  that  we  seek  not  theirs,  but  them.     If  left  to 


32  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

suffer  for  this  world's  comforts,  it  is  better  to  remember 
Him  who  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head,  the  Good  Shep- 
herd who  gave  his  life  for  the  sheep,  than  to  be  suspected 
of  any  mercenary  motive.  When  those  who  reap  our 
spiritual  things  do  not  let  us  reap  their  temporal  things,  it 
is  wiser  to  rebuke  them  manfully,  or  depart  out  of  their 
city  shaking  the  dust  from  our  feet,  if  the  privation  can  be 
no  longer  endured,  than  to  be  all  the  time  breathing  a 
spirit  of  complaint.  That  brooding  discontent,  if  indulged, 
will  gradually  infect  our  whole  ministry;  and  then  the 
power  and  glory  of  our  office  will  be  gone.  Rather  than 
sink  down  into  this  state  of  mind,  than  have  the  sense  of 
unrequited  service  grow  to  be  a  chronic  disease,  it  would 
become  us,  like  Christ  and  the  apostles  if  need  be,  not  to 
enter  on  our  ministry  till  we  have  made  provision  for  our 
temporal  support ;  to  be  able  to  cultivate  a  farm,  deliver 
lectures,  practise  some  handicraft,  or  have  other  means  of 
supplying  our  few  temporal  wants,  which  shall  stand  us  in 
stead  when  they  that  are  taught  forget  to  "  communicate 
with"  him  that  teacheth.  It  becomes  the  ministers  of 
Christ  to  avoid,  in  all  possible  ways,  the  imputation  that 
they  are  hirelings ;  that  their  pastorates  are  simply  their 
"  livings ; "  that  they  follow  their  profession,  just  as  all 
worldly  men  labor,  for  the  sake  of  temporal  wages.  They 
must  compel  men  to  own  that  their  ministry  is  indeed  a 
discipleship  of  Him  who,  though  rich,  became  poor  that 
others  through  his  poverty  might  be  rich ;  that  it  is  pe- 
culiarly and  sublimely  a  labor  of  love ;  that  this  is  its  dis- 
tinctive trait,  wherein  no  other  calling  or  pursuit,  in  all  the 
world,  can  be  compared  with  it. 

But  this  devotion  on  the  part  of  those  who  preach  the 


INTRODUCTION.  33 

gospel  is  not  enough.  It  may  be  made  weak  through 
the  unfaithfulness  of  the  great  body  of  church-members. 
There  have  been  ministers  remarkable  for  their  The  whole 

.   .  ~         ,~          .,*  mi     •      church  must 

spirit  or  seli-sacrmce  in  every  age.  Iheir  co-operate, 
spirit  of  devotion  was  shorn  of  its  power,  however,  be- 
cause it  was  seen  to  be  an  exception  to  the  general  life  of 
the  church.  Whatever  is  exceptional,  among  persons  of 
the  same  class  and  profession,  is  apt  to  be  regarded  as 
abnormal.  The  average  life  of  the  whole  body  is  taken 
as  the  index  of  its  real  spirit.  On  this  ground  it  is  that 
infidels  ascribe  the  zeal  of  such  Christians  as  Henry  Mar- 
tyn,  David  Brainerd,  and  Harlan  Page,  to  religious  fanat- 
icism. They  see  in  it,  not  a  pfroof  of  the  transforming 
power  of  the  gospel,  but  a  sign  of  mental  disorder.  On 
the  same  ground  the  martyr-spirit  of  the  apostles  is  attrib- 
uted to  natural  enthusiasm,  awakened  by  the  undue  ex- 
citement of  the  religious  imagination,  and  the  life  and 
death  of  Christ  are  said  only  to  prove  that  he  was  the 
greatest  of  religious  enthusiasts.  This  objection  can  be 
effectually  answered  only  by  a  spirit  of  devotion  pervading 
the  church.  There  is  a  supernatural  element  in  the 
Christian  life,  —  a  love  of  sacrifice  and  self-denial  in  doing 
good,  —  which  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  mere  natural 
causes.  But  this  element  must  appear  in  the  great  body 
of  Christians,  thus  forcing  men  to  see  that  it  is  in  no  case 
abnormal  or  exceptional,  but  a  uniform  result  of  faith  in 
Christ  Jesus,  or  the  few  good  works,  which  are  done  will 
not  lead  them  to  glorify  our  heavenly  Father.  There  can 
be  no  question,  reasoning  from  the  nature  of  the  human 
mind  as  well  as  from  history,  that  when  the  laity  and 
clergy  are'one  in  this  thing,  every  mouth  of  the  gainsayers 


34  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

will  be  stopped.  All  men  will  be  forced  to  recognize  the 
things  which  are  not  seen,  and  which  are  eternal,  in  order 
to  account  for  the  phenomena  which  the  life  of  the  church 
will  present.  This  general  union,  in  filling  up  what  is  be- 
hind of  Christ's  sufferings,  will  make  it  impossible  for  the 
world  not  to  confess  that  he  proceeded  and  came  forth 
from  the  Father. 

Almost  all  our  reliance,  in  meeting  the  doubts  which 
scientific  or  speculative  thinking  may  from  time  to  time 
generate,  must  be  on  this  leaven  of  sincerity  and  devotion 
to  good  works  in  the  mass  of  Christ's  followers ;  a  power 
which  we  shall  get  only  as  we  have  Christ  formed  within 
us,  and  as  we  put  on  Christ  day  by  day,  so  that  the  life 
which  we  live  in  the  flesh  shall  be  the  life  of  God  man- 
ifested through  us.  To  reveal  him  is  the  sublime  office  of 
all  those  who  make  up  the  one  visible  church.  If  we 
cherish  a  friendly  feeling  towards  the  science  and  philos- 
ophy of  our  time,  that  favor  should  be  for  this  supreme 
HOW  the  object.  If  we  give  our  godspeed  to  every  gen- 
cfiristfo to  ume  charity,  that  sympathy  should  be  for  one 
be  shown.  an(j  ^Q  same  pUrpOse.  If  we  preach  the  doc- 
trines of  the  gospel  thoroughly  and  with  all  our  might, 
that  faithfulness  should  have  no  less  an  end  than  to  de- 
clare the  Father's  name.  All  our  studying,  all  our  toiling, 
all  our  self-sacrificing  should  be  to  show  forth  the  excel- 
lency of  Him  who  has  called  us ;  to  make  men  see  that 
the  gospel,  reproduced  in  the  lives  of  Christians,  is  the 
wisdom  and  power  of  God ;  to  prove,  by  the  all-loving 
spirit  which  animates  us,  that  any  form  of  unbelief  which 
seeks  to  displace  Christianity  is  a  thief  and  a  robber. 
Let  the  Christ-like  spirit  of  all  who  believe,  compel  men  to 


INTRODUCTION.  35 

see  that  infidelity  is  an  imposture  which  bodes  them  only 
evil ;  that  if  admitted  amongst  them  it  would  put  cursing 
for  blessing,  darkness  for  light,  corrupting  selfishness  for 
holy  and  heavenly  charity.  If  we  choose  to  be  identified 
with  one  school  of  theology  rather  than  another,  it  should 
be  clear  to  all  that  that  preference  grows  out  of  a  higher 
consecration.  Not  as  partisans,  but  the  better  to  seek  and 
save  the  lost,  should  we  strive  to  organize  the  truths  of 
the  gospel  into  a  compact  doctrinal  system.  Why  need 
we  care  what  human  name  is  stamped  on  our  weapons,  or 
from  whose  armory  they  came,  if  so  be  that  they  are  of 
celestial  temper,  and  we  find  them  mighty  through  God 
to  the  pulling  down  of  strongholds  ?  And  any  denomina- 
tional likes  or  dislikes  which  we  may  happen  to  have, 
should  grow  out  of  the  same  high  aim  as  our  other  differ- 
ences. They  should  be  our  instrumentalities,  not  our 
ends ;  chosen  not  for  their  own  sake,  but  as  the  harness  in 
v/hich  we  can  work  most  easily  and  effectually  for  Christ. 
In  this  view  the  variety  of  Christian  denominations  is  a 
great  advantage  to  the  universal  church.  They  are  to  be 
rejoiced  in,  so  long  as  they  do  not  usurp  the  place  of  the 
objects  of  the  gospel,  since  they  enable  every  believer, 
whatever  his  natural  peculiarities,  to  find  some  place  of 
service  which  shall  be  congenial  to  him.  David  can  have 
his  sling  and  stones,  and  Saul's  mighty  men  their  heavy 
armor;  and  thus  Israel  shall  not  divide,  but  greatly 
increase  his  strength  against  the  hosts  of  the  Philistines. 
Whether  it  be  a  question  of  theology,  or  of  ecclesiastical 
polity,  all  should  be  free  to  choose  under  Christ,  with  the 
utmost  charity  and  confidence  towards  each  other.  Souls 
hungering  for  the  peace  of  God  will  be  drawn  to  us  by 
seeing  that  we  have  no  party  zeal,  —  no  wish  to  build  up 


OO  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

this  or  that  branch  of  the  church  for  its  own  sake,  or  at 
the  expense  of  some  other  branch,  —  but  make   it   our 
supreme  concern,  through  whatever  special  fellowship  we 
may  choose  to  be  in,  to  save  and  bless  mankind. 
This  spirit         Nothing   but  Christianity  has  ever  given  to 

peculiar  to  J 

Christianity,  the  world  such  a  service  as  this.  There  were 
faint  foresh  ado  wings  of  it  in  ancient  times,  and  in  some 
pagan  lands  men  have  shown  a  capacity  for  it,  within 
certain  narrow  lines ;  but  to  find  another  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth, or  another  such  mission  of  love  as  he  founded, 
would  be  as  impossible  as  to  put  another  sun  in  the 
heavens.  That  -kingdom  of  love  and  suffering,  through 
the  weakness  of  those  to  whom  it  has  been  committed, 
may  at  times  have  seemed  untrue  to  its  lofty  tone  and 
standard ;  and  thus  doors  may  have  been  opened  for  the 
incoming  of  religious  error ;  yet  under  its  broader  aspects, 
and  as  judged  by  its  acknowledged  spirit,  it  has  proved 
itself  to  be,  all  along  through  the  Christian  ages,  the  light 
and  the  life  of  men.  And  if  we  take  up  this  kingdom  in 
our  turn,  and  carry  it  forward  in  the  all-sacrificing  spirit 
of  the  Lamb  of  God,  any  unbeliefs  that  may  be  lowering 
about  us  will  swiftly  disappear.  It  is  the  advancing  sun 
that  makes  the  snow  and  ice  melt,  the  light  shining  in 
beauty  that  causes  the  darkness  to  flee  away.  Men  will 
recoil  from  the  arts  of  the  infidel,  in  the  presence  of  a 
church  thus  in  earnest;-  and  will  hasten  from  him  to  be 
under  its  covert,  instinctively  choosing  life  rather  than 
death,  that  which  quickens  rather  than  that  which  chills 
and  dwarfs  their  noblest  powers.  They  will  turn  to  it  as 
the  imprisoned  plant  turns  to  the  window ;  they  will  flock 
to  it  as  birds  fly  from  winter  to  a  warmer  and  brighter 
clime. 


PANTHEISM. 


(37) 


LECTURE  I. 

SPINOZA.   AND    OTHER   MASTERS. 

ON  the  22d  day  of  February,  1677,  in  a 
small  hired  chamber  at  the  Hague,  while  the  scene. 
owners  of  the  humble  dwelling  were  at  church,  it  being 
Sunday,  a  physician,  having  seen  the  tenant  of  that  lonely 
room  heave  his  last  breath,  and  hastening  to  depart,  took 
to  himself  a  little  money  and  a  silver*handled  knife,  which 
lay  on  the  table  near  the  dead  man's  body,  fearing  that  he 
might  receive  no  other  fee  for  his  medical  services.1  The 
man  whose  lifeless  remains  were  thus  deserted,  to  await 
the  return  of  his  simple  host  and  hostess,  was  Benedict 
Spinoza.  Not  wishing  to  withhold  from  him  any  honor 
which  is  justly  his  due,  but  choosing  that  he  should  be  over- 
praised rather  than  disparaged,  I  am  willing  to  accept  as 
historically  true,  all  that  his  most  ardent  disciples  or  friends 
have  said  of  him.  The  eulogistic  account  of  Mr.  Lewes, 
in  his  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy,2  shall  be  given, 

1  Accounts  of  the  death  of  Spinoza,  as  of  various  events  in  his  life,  do  not 
agree.  Willis  (Life,  Correspondence  and  Ethics  of  Spinoza,  London,  1870) 
differs  from  Lewes,  whom  I  have  chiefly  consulted.  Colerus,  pastor  of  the 
Lutheran  church  at  the  Hague,  who  greatly  admired  Spinoza,  and  took  pains 
to  gather  up  all  the  local  memories  of  him, Is  their  principal  authority;  though 
they  do  not  hesitate  to  question  his  veracity  (especially  Willis)  when  it  conflicts 
with  their  own  prejudices. 

a  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York,  1857,  pp.  456-469. 

39 


40  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTH. 

so  far  as  my  space  will  permit,  with  no  tittle  of  abatement 
from  its  full  meaning. 

Spinoza's  According  to  this  writer,  Spinoza  died  at  the 
]i'giou88refu-  meridian  of  his  manhood,  being  but  forty-four 
years  and  three  months  old.  He  was  of  Jewish 
parentage,  and  his  father  and  mother  resided  in  Amsterdam 
at  the  time  of  his  birth.  They  had  but  recently  come  to 
this  city  of  free  Holland,  escaping  thither  from  their  home 
in  Portugal,  where  intolerance  of  the  Jews  would  not  suffer 
them  to  live.  Their  flight,  it  thus  seems,  was  nearly  in 
the  same  age,  and  for  the  same  reasons,  as  that  of  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  from  England.  They  sought  an  asylum  from 
religious  oppression.  This  is  a  circumstance  which  should 
be  noted,  in  sketching  the  life  of  Spinoza.  If  he  had 
known  Christianity  as  anything  but  a  persecuting  power, 
he  might,  upon  renouncing  Judaism,  have  embraced  some- 
thing better,  possibly,  than  the  dream  which  he  himself 
dreamed  in  his  solitude.  But  for  this  hereditary  prejudice 
and  hatred,  which  we  all  can  understand,  he  might  have 
made  the  choice  of  a  Paul  or  a  Neander.  He  seems,  how- 
ever, when  he  forsook  the  national  faith,  to  have  seen  no 
alternative  but  to  invent  a  religion  of  his  own. 
His  child  Benedict,  or  Baruch,  as  he  was  called  before 

hood.  jje  forsook  the  religion  of  his  people,  is  described 

as  a  remarkably  active  boy,  though  lacking  in  physical 
robustness ;  fond  of  playing,  with  his  sisters  Miriam  and 
Rebecca,  about  the  squares  and  wharfs  of  the  city.  He 
was  remarkable  for  his  "bright,  quick,  and  penetrative" 
eyes ;  and  for  his  dark  hair,  which  floated  in  "  luxuriant 
curls  over  his  neck  and  shoulders."  His  father  is  repre- 
sented as  a  successful  merchant,  who  hoped  that  this  only 


PANTHEISM.  41 

son  would  choose  the  same  occupation.  But  a  passion  for 
study  which  showed  itself  very  early,  together  with  a 
slender  constitution,  daily  growing  more  slender  through 
devotion  to  books  and  meditation,  induced  the 

His  studies. 

parent  to  change  his  purpose.  I  he  beloved  son, 
already  "  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought,"  was 
allowed  to  enter  upon  a  course  of  the  higher  Hebrew 
learning.  He  gave  himself  to  his  studies  with  the  greatest 
enthusiasm,  and  with  astonishing  success ;  so  that  when 
he  was  only  fourteen  years  ol,d,  hardly  a  doctor  or  rabbi,  in 
the  whole  country,  surpassed  him  in  amount  and  accuracy 
of  knowledge.  Very  high  hopes  were  entertained  of  him, 
among  adherents  to  the  Jewish  faith.  His  teacher,  Saul 
Levi  Morteira,  a  zealous  Israelite,  looked  on  him  with  feel- 
ings of  pride  and  admiration.  We  may  easily  judge, 
therefore,  how  great  were  the  disappointment  and  alarm  of 
his  friends,  when  they  found  him  pushing  his  inquiries 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Talmud, 
scattering  the  arguments  of  the  rabbis  with  Hisdefec- 
his  nimble  logic,  and  proposing  to  them  a  mul- 
titude of  very  plain  questions  which  they  saw  it  to  be  for 
their  interest  not  to  attempt  to  answer.  Two  young  men, 
nearly  of  his  own  age,  are  mentioned  as  courting  his  inti- 
macy at  this  time,1  and  urging  him  to  divulge  his  opinions, 
under  a  pretence  of  discipleship  ;  though,  as  he  suspected, 
with  the  purpose  of  betraying  him  to  the  Jewish  elders. 
He  was  so  reticent  to  these  young  men  respecting  his  new 
views,  that  whatever  they  may  have  at  first  designed,  they 
took  offence  at  his  reserve,  and  reported  him  as  one  who  was 
secretly  undermining  the  ancient  faith.  Straightway  he 

i  Willis,  pp.  31,  32. 


42  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

was  summoned  before  the  leaders  of  the  synagogue,  whose 
minds  were  already  beginning  to  turn  against  him.  This 
peremptory  demand  made  him  feel,  no  doubt,  the  great 
inconsistency  of  his  people,  in  refusing  him  the  freedom  of 
opinion  which  they  had  gone  into  exile  to  secure.  He 
appeared,  however,  in  answer  to  the  requirement ;  and 
that,  too,  so  promptly  and  willingly  as  to  raise  strong  hopes, 
among  his  relatives  and  friends,  that  he  would  deny  or 
retract  the  opinions  which  had  been  charged 

His  trial. 

against  him.  Yet  in  all  this  he  was  consistent 
with  himself.  Though  he  would  not  have  his  sentiments 
drawn  out  of  him  and  stated  in  court  by  others,  he  shrank 
not  from  the  opportunity  thus  to  state  them  with  his  own 
voice  and  in  his  own  language.  He  therefore  eagerly 
obeyed  the  summons.  He  gave  a  frank  account  of  his 
heresies  to  the  proper  tribunal.  His  bearing  was  so  easy, 
and  without  apparent  concern  for  himself,  in  the  presence 
of  his  judges,  as  to  amount  to  a  kind  of  "  gay  carelessness," 
says  one  writer.  He  refused  to  take  back  what  he  had 
now  asserted  openly,  unless  he  should  be  convinced  of  his 
error  by  sound  argument.  He  defiantly  but  coolly  con- 
fronted the  accusers  who  appeared  against  him  ;  and  when 
his  judges  threatened  him  with  excommunication  for  his 
obstinacy,  though  he  answered  them  respectfully,  there 

was  something  in  his  voice  and  manner  which 

His  conduct. 

betrayed  a  deep  contempt  for  both  their  office 
and  themselves.  His  old  teacher  Morteira,  grieved  that 
his  brilliant  pupil  should  be  lost  to  Israel,  pleaded  and 
kindly  remonstrated ;  but  these  failing,  he,  too,  joined  in 
the  attempt  to  overawe  the  heretic.  But  threats  had  no 
power  to  intimidate  the  youthful  thinker.  From  whatever 


PANTHEISM.  43 

source  coming,  so  long  as  he  saw  no  reason  in  them  they 
only  awakened  his  proud  disdain.  His  was  one  of  those 
natures,  often  found  in  feeble  bodies,  which  are  incapable 
of  fear.  The  more  he  was  threatened  the  less  disposed 
was  he  to  be  terrified ;  and  when  it  was  finally  resolved  to 
cut  him  off  from  the  Jewish  church,  in  the  awful  manner 
which  the  rules  of  the  synagogue  prescribed,  it  is  said  that 
he  anticipated  the  sentence  by  publicly  declaring  himself 
no  longer  a  Jew  in  faith.  That  sentence,  read  forth  at 
night  in  the  synagogue,  amid  doleful  wailings,  His  excom. 
and  under  lights  which  went  out  one  by  one  muuication- 
till  they  left  the  congregation  in  utter  darkness,  was  as 
follows  :  "  With  the  judgment  of  the  angels,  and  the  sen- 
tence of  the  saints,  we  anathematize,  execrate,  curse,  and 
cast  out  Baruch  de  Spinoza,  the  whole  of  the  sacred  com- 
munity assenting,  in  presence  of  the  sacred  books  with  the 
six  hundred  and  thirteen  precepts  written  therein,  pro- 
nouncing against  him  the  anathema  wherewith  Joshua 
anathematized  Jericho,  the  malediction  wherewith  Elisha 
cursed  the  children,  and  all  the  maledictions  wiitten  in  the 
book  of  the  law.  Let  him  be  accursed  by  day,  and  ac- 
cursed by  night ;  let  him  be  accursed  in  his  lying  down,  and 
accursed  in  his  rising  up,  accursed  in  going  out,  and  accursed 
in  coming  in.  May  the  Lord  never  more  pardon  or  acknowl- 
edge him ;  may  the  wrath  and  displeasure  of  the  Lord 
burn  henceforth  against  this  man,  load  him  with  all  the 
curses  written  in  the  book  of  the  law,  and  raze  out  his 
name  from  under  the  sky;  may  the  Lord  sever  him  for 
evil  from  all  the  tribes  of  Israel,  weight  him  with  all  the 
maledictions  of  the  firmament  contained  in  the  book  of 


:a 

"7 

•df 


44  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTH. 

the  law,  and  may  all  ye  who  are  obedient  to  the  Lord  your 
God  be  saved  this  day."  l 

It  may  be  proper  to  add  that  the  health  of 
Spinoza  did  not  fail,  as  soon  as  this  dreadful 
ceremony  was  over ;  and  that  he  lived  nearly  twenty  years 
after  it,  quite  as  long  as  his  poor  body  ever  promised  to 
last,  during  which  years  he  seems  to  have  fully  carried 
out  his  one  great  purpose.  But  that  malediction,  like 
similar  ones  from  the  Head  of  the  Romish  church  at  dif- 
ferent times,  was  not  altogether  an  idle  thunderbolt.  So 
greatly  enraged  were  his  old  associates  and  friends  at  his 
withdrawal  from  them  previous  to  this  sentence,  thus 
showing  an  open  contempt  not  only  for  their  worship  but 
for  their  power  to  curse  him,  that  his  life  was  not  safe. 
Forgetting  the  words  of  the  frightful  sentence,  which  for- 
bade them  to  come  "  within  four  cubits'  length "  of  him. 
they  waylaid  him,  with  evil  intent,  in  his  nightly  walks ; 
and  on  one  occasion,  at  least,  the  assassin's  knife  would 
have  entered  his  neck,  had  he  not  dexterously  avoided  its 
thrust.  Regard  for  his  personal  safety  now  compelled  him 
to  keep  away  from  his  former  haunts.  His  own  kindred 
even  sought  him  but  to  do  him  harm.  For  the  sake  of 
their  good  standing  with  the  synagogue,  no  doubt  with 
true  Hebrew  vengeance  also,  they  had  publicly  disowned 
him,  and  wrathfully  denounced  him.  He  wandered  about 
in  places  where  he  was  not  known,  unable  to  tell  what 
death  might  befall  him  any  moment ;  and  though  scorning 
it,  yet  menaced  by  the  cloud  of  curses  which  hung  over 
him.  But  he  was  not  at  all  moved  from  his  deeper  plans, 
during  the  years  that  he  led  this  uncertain  life.  He  went 

i  Willis,  pp.  34,  35. 


PANTHEISM.  45 

straightway  to  a  physician  in  Amsterdam,  Van  den  Ende 
by  name,  who  was  a  tutor  in  the  Latin  tongue. 
This  language  was  the  key  to  the  philosophy  of 
the  time,  and  the  medium  of  intercourse  among  learned 
men.  The  Hebrew  religion  had  forbidden  Spinoza,  as  it 
did  all  Israelites,  to  know  this  language ;  yet  he  seems 
to  have  already  had  considerable  acquaintance  with  it, 
nevertheless.  His  object,  in  seeking  Van  den  Ende,  may 
have  been  to  perfect  himself  in  this,  and  in  the  Greek 
tongue ;  and  also,  as  Willis  thinks,  to  earn  a  pittance  by 
aiding  his  tutor  with  other  pupils.  Another  fact  associated 
with  this  school  greatly  interests  us,  since  it  is  one  of  the 
few  proofs  we  have  that  there  was  to  Spinoza's  nature  a 
deeply  tender  and  susceptible  side.  Though  almost  noth- 
ing of  an  emotional  nature  can  be  found  in  his  published 
writings,  I  suspect  that  no  man  ever  felt  more  keenly  or 
profouncUy,  on  all  those  matters  which  most  stir  the  hu- 
man heart.  It  seems  that  his  new  professor  had  a  daugh- 
ter, as  skilled  as  her  sire  in  the  speech  of  the  Roman 
maidens ;  and  that  to  her  tuition  this  young  Benedict  was 
in  some  way  assigned.  However  this  may  have 

His  love; 

been,  it  is  at  least  certain  that  he  came,  most 
silently  and  deliciously,  to  be  in  love  with  his  fair  asso- 
ciate. Yet,  with  a  true  and  knightly  sense  of  honor,  he 
kept  his  affection  secret,  waiting  for  the  time  when  his 
prospects  should  be  more  settled.  That  time  having 
come,  and  the  young  lady  having  had  full  opportunity  to 
learn  his  character  and  peculiar  religious  views,  he  ven- 
tured to  hint  to  her  the  state  of  his  feelings  and  his  hopes. 
But  he  met  no  encouragement.  Had  he  been  a  member 
of  the  Papal  church,  a  man  of  wealth,  and  a  favorite  in 


46  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

gay  society,  she  might  not  have  objected.  As  it  was, 
however,  she  preferred  to  cast  in  her  lot  with  a  young 
Hamburg  merchant,  who  had  the  means  of  gratifying  all 
her  wishes  for  show  and  idle  luxury.  Spinoza  was  grieved 
to  find  that  he  had  been  offering  his  honorable  heart  to 
such  vanity ;  he  was  astonished  at  himself,  that  he  could 
have  felt  so  much  interest  in  so  much  selfishness  and  du- 
plicity ;  and  taking  home  the  severe  lesson,  thankful  that 
he  had  pressed  his  suit  no  farther,  he  turned  away  forever 
from  love  to  philosophy.  His  susceptible  nature  seemed 
to  be  utterly  driven  in  upon  itself.  Perhaps  there  never 
was  a  more  absolute  consecration  to  the  search  for  truth, 
with  the  single  fault  that  it  was,  at  all  events,  to  be  a 
search  made  in  his  own  strength ;  the  trustworthiness  of 
his  individual  intellect  was  not  to  be  questioned.  Dis- 
owned of  kindred,  his  tenderness  rebuffed  in  the  first 
effort  to  speak  it,  he  cheerfully  accepted  his  lot^  and  he 
undertook  the  mighty  riddle  which  was  closing  about 
him,  with  no  faith  in  any  wisdom  but  his  own. 
His  purpose  ^  Spinoza  now  asked,  whether  of  friend  or 
formed.  foe)  was  to  be  permitted  to  live.  And  of  this 
he  was  pretty  sure  while  he  kept  out  of  the  way ;  for  his 
wants  were  very  few,  and  he  had  learned  the  art  of  polish- 
ing lenses  for  optical  instruments,  by  which  he  earned  small 
sums  of  money  from  time  to  time.  Leibnitz  praised  him 
for  his  skill  in  this  art,  writing,  in  a  letter  to  the  young 
truth-seeker,  "Among  the  honorable  things  which  fame 
has  acquainted  me  with  concerning  you,  I  learn  with  no 
small  interest  that  you  are  a  clever  optician."  Spinoza 
was  now,  as  he  felt,  fully  able  to  provide  for  himself  in  the 
world.  Independent  and  satisfied,  determined  to  push  his 


PANTHEISM.  47 

inquiries  boldly  on  all  sides,  he  was  careless  of  what  any 
critic  might  say  about  him,  and  sure  of  supplying  his  few 
bodily  needs  from  the  earnings  of  spare  hours.  It  was  an 
instance  of  self-confidence  hardly  paralleled  in  the  history 
of  thinking,  and  which  commands  our  admiration  at  least, 
when  that  student,  only  about  twenty-five  years  old,  de- 
parted from  his  native  city  scarcely  knowing  whither  he 
went,  and  caring  for  nothing  but  to  push  the  investigations 
of  which  he  had  taken  hold.  On  the  road  between  Am- 
sterdam and  Auwerkerke  he  found  his  first  asylum,  in  a 
house  which  is  said  to  be  still  standing,  situated  on  what 
is  called,  in  memory  of  the  great  thinker,  Spinoza  Lane.1 
From  this  retreat  he  went,  after  about  five  years,-  to  reside 
in  Rhynsburg ;  whence  he  again  removed,  some  four  years 
later,  till  finally  he  took  lodgings  in  an  obscure  house  at 
the  Hague. 

The  fame  of  Descartes  was  at  its  zenith,  dur-  Read's  DCS- 
ing  these  years  of  Spinoza's  life,  the  great  ideal-  '. 
ist  having  been  dead  but  a  few  years,  and  his  enthusiastic 
disciples  having  installed  his  philosophy  as  a  chief  author- 
ity in  the  best  schools  of  learning  throughout  Europe. 
To  his  works  Spinoza  at  once  turned,  studying  them 
with  intense  ardor,  but  subjecting  every  statement  to 
the  tests  of  his  own  consciousness  and  logic.  Accepting 
the  main  premise,  and  the  method  of  this  master,  lie 
yet  found  much  to  disagree  with  in  the  structure  of 
Cartesianism.  The  result  of  these  studies  was  his  first 
work,  published  at  Amsterdam  in  1663,  entitled  The 
Principles  of  the  Philosophy  of  Rene  des  Cartes  demon- 
strated by  the  geometrical  method ;  to  which  are  added 

i  Willis. 


48  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Metaphysical  Thoughts,  by  Benedict  Spinoza.1  The 
Thoughts,  thus  appended  to  his  exposition  of  Descartes, 
contained  the  germs  of  his  system  of  pantheism.  His 
great  work  on  Ethics,  written  subsequently,  and  not  pub- 
lished till  after  his  death,  and  in  which  we  have  the  final 
embodiment  of  his  philosophical  views,  grew  out  of  this 
beginning.  Such  utterances,  as  we  might  readily  infer, 
gave  no  little  offence  to  the  multitude  of  Cartesians ;  and 
their  deep  hostility  was  shown,  at  times,  in  ways  more 
pointed  than  becoming.  They  abhorred  the  conclusions 
of  Spinoza ;  and  to  see  him  grafting  his  system  upon  that 
of  their  adored  master,  was  more  than  philosophy  could 
bear.  To  add  to  their  vexation  they  beheld  the  book  of 
the  new  expounder  and  critic  in  the  hands  of  almost  every 
young  student.  Spinoza,  though  cast  out  from  society, 
and  exposed  to  death  all  the  wrhile,  had  -yet  succeeded  in 
making  for  himself  many  admirers.  All  curious  minds, 
whatever  they  might  think  of  his  religious  leanings,  were 
charmed  by  the  boldness  and  novelty  of  his  speculations. 
Partly  that  he  might  the  better  command  his  time,  and 
partly  to  be  out  of  the  way  of  his  implacable  foes,  he 
withdrew  at  length  into  his  little  room  at  the  Hague, 
where  fifteen  years  later  a  consumption,  the  seeds  of 
which  he  had  inherited,  put  an  end  to  his  solitary  life. 
Here  he  exhibited  many  traits  of  character  which  reveal 
the  true^  philosopher  and  claim  our  honest  admiration, 
character-is-  ^IS  unselfishness  in  common  things  was  won- 
derful. An  estate  fell  to  him  at  his  father's 
death,  which  his  sisters  denied  his  right  to  inherit,  on 
account  of  his  apostasy  from  the  Hebrew  faith.  He  there- 

i  Willis,  p.  47. 


PANTHEISM.  49 

fore  first  established  his  right  in  the  civil  courts,  and  then 
gave  the  whole  estate  to  the  sisters,  to  be  divided  between 
them.  Self-possession  and  bravery  were  natural  to  him. 
On  one  occasion  he  was  summoned  away  from  his  cham- 
ber by  the  great  Conde,  then  in  Holland  with  a  French 
army.  For  this  act  he  was  suspected  of  some  secret  sym- 
pathy with  the  enemies  of  his  country;  and  upon  his 
return,  an  infuriated  mob  was  speedily  gathered  about  his 
lodgings.  The  owner  of  the  house,  dreading  the  ruin 
wrhich  threatened  him,  entreated  Spinoza  to  take  himself 
out  of  the  way  as  quickly  as  possible.  "  Fear  nothing," 
was  the  quiet  reply ;  "I  will  go  out  and  meet  them." 
Accordingly,  instead  of  running  away  and  hiding,  he  did 
go  out,  greatly  to  the  relief  of  his  host ;  and  the  mob, 
overawed  by  his  calm  and  fearless  demeanor,  stole  away 
from  him,  afraid  to  touch  a  hair  of  his  head.  He  scorned 
the  least  overreaching  or  unfair  dealing.  Being  asked 
once  to  take  the  chair  of  philosophy  at  Heidelberg,  he 
declined ;  for  he  knew  that  the  theology  there  taught,  if  it 
did  not  give  way,  would  soon  bring  him  into  open  conflict 
with  his  associates.  He  would  not  even  make  converts  to 
his  own  views  at  the  expense  of  the  orthodox  party. 
Nor  was  he  less  independent  than  magnanimous.  He 
would  not  put  himself  in  the  way  of  temptation,  which 
might  lead  him  to  change  his  views,  or  become  the  tool  of 
another  man.  He  was  offered  a  pension,-  if  he  would  en- 
gage to  dedicate  his  next  work  to  Louis  XIV.  But  he 
proudly  refused,  saying  that  he  had  "  no  intention  of  ded- 
icating anything  to  that  monarch."  Such  was  the  favor 
that  sought  him,  and  his  way  of  meeting  it ;  and  that,  too, 
while  .his  poverty  was  all  the  time  extreme.  One  day  he 
4 


50  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

would  have  no  food  but  a  dish  of  soup  costing 

His  poverty. 

three  halfpence,  and  a  pot  of  beer  worth  three 
farthings.  Another  day  he  would  be  content  with  "  a 
basin  of  gruel,  with  some  butter  and  raisins,  which  cost 
him  twopence  halfpenny."  "And,"  says  pastor  Colerus, 
who  gathered  these  facts  about  Spinoza  while  occupying 
the  same  lodgings  which  had  been  the  philosopher's, 
"  although  often  invited  to  dinner,  he  preferred  the  scanty 
meal  that  he  found  at  home,  to  dining  sumptuously  at  the 
expense  of  another."1 

It  is  said  that  in  all  his  lifetime,  after  coming 

His  patience. 

to  years  01  discretion,  he  was  never  heard  to 
murmur  or  complain.  Silent,  thoughtful,  smiling,  ever 
patient  and  ever  toiling,  he  lived  on  in  his  solitary  cham- 
ber. Nor  Avas  he  too  poor  to  indulge  the  kindliness  of  his 
nature  now  and  then,  by  giving  away  something  for  the 
relief  of  the  destitute.  The  mistress  of  the  house  in 
which  he  lodged  was,  together  with  her  husband,  a  firm 
believer  in  the  Christian  religion;  and  when  she  came  to 
him,  as  she  repeatedly  did,  asking  him  to  explain  his  reli- 
gious views,  so  that  she  mio-ht  know  them  and 

His  toler- 
ance, judge  for  herself,  he  mildly  parried  her  request, 

urging  her  to  be  content  with  her  present  faith.  "Your 
religion  is  a  good  religion,"  said  he ;  "  you  have  no  occa- 
sion to  look  after  another;  neither  need  you  doubt  of 
your  eternal  welfare  so  as,  along  with  your  pious  observ- 
ances, you  continue  to  lead  a  life  of  peace  in  charity  with 
all."2  It  will  be  seen  here  that  Spinoza,  according  to  the 
doctrine  of  his  Tractatus  Theologico-Politicus,  places  reli- 
gion in  outward  forms  chiefly,  which  one-may  adopt  or  lay 

i  See  Lewes,  2  Willis,  p.  56. 


PANTHEISM.  51 

aside  at  pleasure,  his  real  character  being  a  thing  which 
they  do  not  affect  in  any  case.  This  extreme  tolerance, 
and  making  man's  eternal  safety  depend  on  the  common 
moral  virtues,  is  significant.  It  shows  the  small  practical 
value  which  Spinoza  attached  to  his  own,  or  to  any,  con- 
clusions of  the  intellect.  All  that  is  necessary  in  every 
case,  as  he  seems  to  teach,  is,  that  one's  views  be  purely 
his  own;  not  learned  from  any  other  person,  but  reached 
by  an  independent  course  of  study.  This,  certainly,  is  a 
tolerance  so  large,  that  to  see  wherein  it  is  not  simply 
indifference  to  truth,  must  be  hard  for  most  minds. 
Imagine  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  at  the  well  in  Samaria,  telling 
the  woman  who  asked  him  about  his  religion,  to  be  con- 
tent with  the  faith  in  which  she  had  been  brought  up !  It 
is  the  tendency  of  a  great  truth,  when  one  has  embraced 
it,  to  make  him  a  missionary.  Just  in  proportion  as  lie 
values  it  he  feels  bound  to  proclaim  it,  and  to  bring  other 
men  into  it.  We  see  this  inspiration  of  truth  nobly 
shown  in  the  martyr,  changed  to  a  demon  in  the  persecutor, 
manifested  with  heavenly  beauty  in  Him  who  went  about 
teaching  among  the  villages  of  Galilee. 

Does   not   this  want  of  moral  earnestness  in  Spinoza 
indicate  that  he  studied  and   wrote  not  to   instruct,  so 
much  as  to  please  himself  and   puzzle  mankind  ?     The 
supposition  that  he  found  a  certain  secret  enjoyment  in 
confusing  men's  thoughts  and  bewildering  them  with  his 
subtle   paradoxes,  would  fall   in  with  some  of  His  easy 
his  well-known  habits.     "  His  only  relaxations,"   events. 
says  Mr.  Lewes,  "  were  his  pipe,  receiving  visitors,  chat- 
ting  to   the  people  of  his  house,  and  watching  spiders 
fight.     This  last  amusement  would  make   the   tears  roll 


[3JHIVBESITYJ 


52  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

down  his  cheek  with  laughter."  Willis,  noticing  the  fact 
about  the  spiders,  is  anxious  to  prevent  the  suspicion  of  a 
wanton  cruelty  which  it  tends  to  awaken;  and  he  sug- 
gests that  it  was  not  the  battles,  but  the  loves  of  the  ven- 
onlous  insects,  which  so  greatly  amused  the  philosopher. 
The  tradition  that  Spinoza  kept  a  colony  of  spiders  in  his 
room,  and  that  he  fed  them  with  flies,  after  the  manner  of 
the  Roman  theatre,  where  Christians  were  thrown  to  the 
lions,  cannot  be  thus  explained  away.  This  pastime 
seems  to  have  afforded  quite  as  much  pleasure  as  the 
other.  Mr.  Willis  may  discredit  it,  and  Lewes  pass  it  by 
silently ;  but  a  more  sensitive  writer  has  said,  "  I  could 
never  understand  the  mirth,  the  '  laughter '  which  Spinoza 
is  said  to  have  indulged  in,  when  witnessing  the  contest 
between  the  spider  and  the  fly.  I  can  comprehend  that 
so  abstract  a  philosopher  would  have  risen  above  our  nat- 
ural repugnance,  and  surveyed  even  calmly  an  instance  of 
a  general  and  a  wise  law  of  nature,  —  life  surrendered  to 
support  other  and  generally  higher  life,  —  but  why  should 
the  death  of  the  poor  fly  have  occasioned  laughter?"1 
The  disturbed  author  would  have  hardly  started  this 
query,  had  he  duly  considered  what  was  the  essence  of 
Spinoza's  doctrine.  He  should  have  known  that  the  "  ab- 
stract philosopher"  was  entirely  consistent  with  his  the- 
ory, in  laughing  at  the  struggles  of  the  victim ;  for  the 
grand  lesson  which  his  whole  system  impresses  is,  the 
right  of  power  to  triumph  over  weakness. 

vagueness          Thus  lived  and  died  Benedict   Spinoza,  the 

writers.         father  of  Modern  Pantheism.     Perhaps  it  would 

not  be  far  out  of  the  way  to  say  that  he  was  the 

1  Thorndale. 


PANTHEISM.  53 

father  of  all  pantheism,  if  we  mean  by  that  term  only 
such  systems,  of  the  same  nature  as  his,  as  have  a  logical 
completeness  and  have  been  clearly  reported  to  us.  The 
signs  of  agreement  with  him  which  we  find  in  ancient 
thought  are  often  more  or  less  vague  and  uncertain.  As 
there  were  reformers  before  the  Reformation,  so  there  may 
have  been  Spinozists  before  Spinoza.  There  is  at  least  a 
pantheistic  flavor,  in  some  parts  of  ancient  philosophy, 
which  demands  our  attention ;  but  the  result,  at  the  best, 
does  not  promise  to  be  such  as  would  repay  an  exhaustive 
treatment.  There  are,  in  the  New  Testament,  words  and 
phrases  which  a  pantheist  might  use.  Yet  no  candid 
scholar  would  affirm  that  pantheism  is  meant,  where  we 
read  that  "  Christ  is  all  and  in  all,"  that  "  whosoeArer  is 
joined  unto  the  Lord  is  one  spirit,"  that  "the  Father 
dwelleth  in  us  and  we  in  him."  If  we  use  an  exegesis 
which  saves  such  passages  as  these  from  pantheism,  which 
condemns  nothing  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  nothing  in  the 
Epistles  of  Paul,  nothing  in  the  words  of  Christ  himself, 
to  that  category,  why  not  make  a  similar  allowance  in  the 
study  of  uninspired  writers  ?  Indeed,  there  are  modern 
writers,  both  of  prOse  and  poetry,  who  have  spoken  here 
and  there  in  the  forms  of  pantheism,  yet  whose  words 
spoken  in  other  places  make  it  certain  that  the  universe 
and  God  were  not  to  them  one  and  the  same  thing.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  lines  of  Pope,  in  his  Essay  on  Man :  — 

"  All  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole, 
Whose  body  nature  is,  and  God  the  soul. 
That,  changed  through  all,  and  yet  in  all  the  same, 
Great  in  the  earth  as  in  the  ethereal  frame. 
Warms  in  the  sun,  refreshes  in  the  breeze, 
Glows  in  the  stars,  and  blossoms  in  the  trees, 


54  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Lives  through  all  life,  extends  through  all  extent, 
Spreads  undivided,  operates  unspent, 
Breathes  in  our  soul,  informs  our  mortal  part, 
As  full,  as  perfect  in  a  hair  as  heart; 
To  him  no  high,  no  low,  no  great,  no  small ; 
He  fills,  he  bounds,  connects,  and  equals  all." 

If  such  language  as  this  may  be  corrected,  in  the  light 
of  other  expressions  by  the  same  author,  so  as  to  leave 
him  still  a  believer  in  the  essential  truths  of  Christianity, 
we  certainly  may  suppose  that  at  least  some  of  the  ancient 
authors,  from  whom  pantheistic  fragments  only  have  come 
down,  spoke  other  words,  now  lost,  without  which  they 
cannot  be  fairly  judged.  I  do  not  deny  that  some  of  them 
were  clear  and  thorough-going  pantheists  ;  but  the  opinion 
of  those  best  able  to  form  a  judgment  in  the  case,  has  for 
years  been  inclining  to  the  view,  that  not  a  little  of  what 
was  once  loosely  called  the  pantheism  of  the  ancients,  was 
the  more  or  less  vague  tradition  of  a  primeval  monotheism. 
In  rejecting  the  many  gods  of  paganism,  and  insisting  on 
the  divine  unity,  of  which  dim  remembrances  had  been 
handed  on  to  them,  they  may  have  used  terms  which  we 
falsely  regard  as  anticipating  the  theory  of  Spinoza. 

One  of  the  first  movements  in  religious  phi- 

The  Alex- 

jindriau          losophy  \vhich  here  attracts  our  notice,  is  the 

musters. 

Neo-Platonism  of  Alexandria.  Perhaps  we 
ought  not  to  feel  any  hesitation  in  charging  pantheism 
upon  the  teachers  of  that  famous  school.  For  we  find  them 
holding  such  language  as  this  :  "  God  is  the  only  existence ; 
he  is  the  real  existence,  of  which  we,  and  other  tilings,  are 
but  transitory  phenomena."  The  greatest  of  the  Alexan- 
drine masters  was  Plotinus,  who  went  to  Rome. 

Plotinus. 

and  founded  a  school  there,  where  he  had  among 


PANTHEISM.  55 

his  pupils  the  celebrated  Porphyry.  He  died  towards  the 
close  of  the  third  century  of  our  era.  The  following  is 
from  him :  "  How  doth  wisdom  differ  from  that  which  is 
called  nature  ?  Verily  in  this  manner,  that  wisdom  is  the 
first  thing,  but  nature  the  least  and  lowest ;  for  nature  is 
but  an  imitation  or  image  of  wisdom,  the  last  thing  of  the 
soul,  which  hath  the  lowest  impress  of  wisdom  shining 
upon  it ;  as  when  a  thick  piece  of  wax  is  thoroughly  im- 
pressed on  a  seal,  that  impress,  which  is  clear  and  distinct 
in  the  superior  superficies  of  it,  will  in  the  lower  side  be 
weak  and  obscure ;  and  such  is  the  stamp  and  signature 
of  nature ;  compared  with  that  of  wisdom  and  under- 
standing, nature  is  a  thing  which  doth  only  do,  but  not 
know." 1  Thus  did  he  seem  to  identify  the  essence  of 
nature  with  that  of  intelligence  ;  and  this  latter  he  appears 
to  have  held  as  one  with  the  Godhead ;  for  even  in  the 
agonies  of  death  he  exclaimed,  "  I  am  struggling  to  liberate 
the  divinity  within  me."  He  wrote  two  books  to  prove 
that  all  being  is  one  and  the  same ;  and  the  reason  which 
he  gave  for  not  sacrificing  to  the  gods  was,  that  it  became 
the  gods,  since  he  too  was  divine,  to  sacrifice  to  him. 
Views  essentially  the  same  as  those  of  Plotinus,  were 
taught  by  his  successor  lamblichus  at  Alexan- 

lamblichus. 

aria ;  and  as  late  as  the  year  529,  at  Athens,  by 

Proclus  and  those  who  followed  him  in  the  school  of  that 

city.     For  a  more  full  account  of  these  masters 

and  their  philosophy  than  can  be  given  here,  the 

work  of  Butler  may  be  consulted.2    "  It  is  the  perpetual 

i  Cudworth's  Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe,  Vol.  T.,  p.  240. 
s  Ancient  philosophy,  by  William  Archer  Butler  (Philadelphia,  1857),  Vol. 
II.,  pp.  320-335. 


56  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TEUTH. 

lesson  of  Plotinus,"  says  Butler,  "  that  the  object  of  reason 
is  not,  cannot  be,  external  to  reason ;  that  truth  is  not  in 
the  conformity  of  thoughts  with  things,  but  of  thoughts 
with  each  other.  Intelligence  is  at  once  the  object  con- 
ceived, the  subject  conceiving,  and  the  act  of  conception. 
To  rest  on  self  is  to  commune  with  the  universe."  In  his 
theory  of  knowledge,  and  of  the  world,  which  he  held  to 
be  an  efflux  of  the  divine  substance,  the  teaching  of  Ploti- 
nus is  such  as  to  give  the  impression  that  he  anticipated 
the  doctrine  of  Spinoza. 

This  notice  of  the  Alexandrine  school  brings 

Plato. 

us,  by  association,  to  Plato  himself,  from  whom 
they  claimed  to  derive  the  germs  of  their  system.  Butler 
says  that  Proclus  "  found  in  Plato  all  he  wished  to  find ; " 
and  that  "the  dreamy  theories  of  Alexandria  were  not 
unnatural  results  of  certain  tendencies  discoverable  in  the 
writings  of  Plato  himself —  tendencies  for  which  his  own 
well-balanced  intellect,  doubtless,  provided  sufficient  coun- 
terpoise, but  which  too  closely  suited  peculiar  tempera- 
ments not  to  have  been  soon  exalted  into  exclusive  or 
predominant  principles  of  speculation."  l  Plato  seems  to 
have  tried  to  mediate  between  the  empiricists  of  his  day 
and  pure  rationalists  of  the  Eleatic  school ;  yet  the  tran- 
scendental element  in  his  writings  is  that  which  most  power- 
fully affected  his  followers,  and  which  was  especially  laid 
hold  of  by  the  Alexandrine  teachers.  They  treated  him 
"  very  much  as  Philo  treated  Moses  ; "  very  much  as  some 
of  the  Christian  fathers,  trained  at  Alexandria,  treated  the 
New  Testament  writings.  Whatever  we  find  among  the 
Neo-Platonists,  therefore,  we  can  trace  back  to  Plato  only 

i  Ancient  Philosophy,  Vol.  II.,  p.  55. 


PANTHEISM.  57 

in  some  such  sense  as  the  Alexandrine  Jew  might  trace  it 
to  the  writings  of  Moses,  or  the  Neo-Platonic  Christian-  to 
the  words  of  Christ  and  the  apostles. 

Even  in  Aristotle  there  are  statements  which 

.  Aristotle. 

have  a  pantheistic  look,  though  his  genius  was 
of  the  empirical  cast.  In  his  treatise  on  psychology,  he 
seems  to  regard  the  soul  as  a  principle  pervading  nature, 
which  exists  in  the  plants  and  animals  no  less  than  in  the 
philosopher.  Dr.  South  says  he  taught,  "that  there  was 
one  universal  soul  belonging  to  the  whole  species  or  race 
of  mankind,  and  indeed  to  all  things  according  to  their 
capacity ;  which  universal  soul,  by  its  respective  existence 
in,  and  communication  of  itself  to  each  particular  man, 
did  exert  in  him  those  noble  acts  of  ratiocination  and  un- 
derstanding proper  to  his  nature ;  and  those  also  in  a 
different '  degree  and  measure  of  perfection,  according  as 
the  diiferent  disposition  of  the  organs  of  the  body  made  it 
more  or  less  fit  to  receive  the  communication  of  that  uni- 
versal soul ;  which  soul  only  he  held  to  be  immortal,  and 
that  each  particular  man,  both  in  respect  of  body  and 
spirit,  was  mortal."  We  must  perhaps  accept  this  as  mo- 
nism ;  though,  clearly  enough,  it  anticipates  the  science  of 
the  Comtian  school,  rather  than  the  metaphysics  of  Spinoza. 
Other  expressions  of  Aristotle  would  indicate  to  us  that  it 
ought  not  to  be  interpreted  too  rigidly ;  and,  even  admit- 
ting that  Dr.  South  caught  the  proper  force  of  his  words, 
they  may  have  been  simply  his  strong  expression  of  dissent 
from  the  polytheism  of  the  times. 

Earlier  than  the  age  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  Xenophan€a 
lived  Xenophanes,  the  founder  of  the  Eleatic  theEieatic. 
school  of  philosophy.  He,  according  to  Grote,  "con- 


58  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

ceived  nature  as  one  unchangeable  and  indivisible  whole, 
spherical,  animated,  endued  with  reason,  and  penetrated 
by,  OK  indeed  identical  with  God  :  he  denied  the  objective 
reality  of  all  changes,  or  generation,  or  destruction,  which 
he  seems  to  have  considered  as  only  changes  or  modifica- 
tions in  the  percipient,  and  perhaps  different  in  one  per- 
cipient and  another."  The  Eleatics  may  have  been 
pantheists  ;  yet  we  should  bear  in  mind  that  this  language 
is  not  theirs,  so  much  as  Grote's  commentary  on  the 
teachings  of  their  founder.  The  same  may  be  remarked 
of  Heraclitus,  a  pupil  of  Xenophanes,  who  was 

Heraclitus. 

called  "the  weeping  philosopher,"  and  in  whose 
teachings  Hegel  claimed  to  find  the  germs  of  Hegelianism. 
The  decisive  question  in  regard  to  him,  as  in  regard  to 
many  others  both  before  and  after  him,  —  a  question  im- 
possible to  answer,  —  is  this  :  Had  he  any  clear  knowledge 
of  the  one  living  and  true  God  ?  If  not,  his  utterances  about 
the  Divine  Reason,  and  the  One,  are  very  probably  pan- 
theistic. But  if  he  had  such  knowledge,  those  same  utter- 
ances may  indicate  a  more  or  less  pure  monotheism.  Py- 
thagoras, who  lived  in  the  fifth  century  before 

Pythagoras. 

Christ,  agreed  apparently  with  the  two  thinkers 
last  named  ;  though  his  method  is  peculiar.  "  Numbers," 
said  he,  "  are  the  cause  of  the  material  existence  of  things." 
In  the  development  of  this  theory  of  numbers,  we  find 
traces  of  what  has  been  commonly  held  to  be  pantheism  ; 
for  he  represents  all  things  as  the  forthputtings  of  one 
eternal  unit,  held  together  by  its  underlying  and  pervasive 
power,  and  returning  constantly  by  absorption  into  it. 
The  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  which  is  associated  with 
his  name,  seems  to  have  grown  out  of  this  general  theory, 


PANTHEISM.  59 

as  also  perhaps  the  peculiar  discipline  which  he  established 
among  his  pupils.  He  was  distinguished  in  his  day  for 
the  honor  he  rendered  to  woman.  His  wife  is  said  to  have 
been  as  devoted  as  himself  in  the  search  for  truth ;  and 
many  of  the  noblest  women  of  Greece  were  among  his  schol- 
ars, —  in  connection  with  which  fact  it  should  be  remarked, 
however,  that  he  required  each  one  of  his  pupils,  upon 
entering  the  school,  to  take  a  vow  of  silence  for  five  years. 
There  was.  a  school  of  philosophers  in  ancient  H  lozoists 
Greece,  known  as..  Hylozoists,  in  distinction  aud°thefs. 
.from  the  Atomists,  whose  speculations  have  a  decidedly 
pantheistic  flavor.  Strato  Lampsaeenus  was  a  master  in 
this  school,  and  is  represented  by  Cudworth  as  the  teacher 
of  a  certain  crude  pantheism.  "  Strato's  deity,"  says  he, 
"was  a  certain  living  and  active,  but  senseless  nature.  He 
did  not  fetch  the  original  of  all  things,  as  the  Democritic 
and  Epicurean  atheists,  from  a  mere  fortuitous  motion  of 
atoms,  by  means  whereof  he  bore  some  slight  resemblance 
of  a  theist ;  but  yet  he  was  a  downright  atheist  for  all 
that,  his  god  being  no  other  than  such  a  life  of  nature  or 
matter  as  was  both  devoid  of  sense  and  consciousness, 
and  also  multiplied  together  with  the  several  parts  of  it."  * 
Coleridge  was  no  doubt  right  in  saying  that  "pantheism 
was  taught  in  the  mysteries  of  Greece."  Yet  it  is  hardly 
fair  to  study  those  ancient  systems,  as  too  many  critics  seem 
to  have  done,  with  the  foregone  conclusion,  that  so  far  as 
they  were  not  polytheistic  they  were  pantheistic.  The  pre- 
supposition of  pure  monotheism  would  explain  certain  por- 
tions of  them  just  as  well.  Men  who  think,  and  who  find 
their  data  in  consciousness,  are  exposed  to  pantheism  when 

1  Intellectual  System,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  149,  150. 


60  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTH. 

they  forsake  the  true  God ;  and  this  is  enough  to  establish 
the  fact  that  many  of  the  Greek  philosophers,  though  we  dare 
not  say  precisely  which  ones,  were  forerunners  of  Spinoza. 
TheOrien-  ^  ^e  contemplative  Orientals  it  is  far  more 
tais.  "true  than  of  the  Greeks,  that,  in  their  ignorance 

of  the  true  God,  they  inclined  to  pantheism.  We  find  in 
the  East  a  philosophy  of  the  senses,  quite  as  earnest  as 
that  of  Democritus  or  Epicurus,  and  resulting  in  a  vast 
system  of  Positivism ;  but  the  main  current  of  thought 
there  seems  always  to  have  set  more  naturally  towards 
Spinozism.  The  ancient  Hindoos,  if  we  may  trust  Sir 
William  Jones,  "believed  that  the  wrhole  creation  is  an 
energy  rather  than  a  work,  by  which  the  infinite  mind  is 
present  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  and  exhibits  to  his 
creatures  a  set  of  perceptions,  like  a  wonderful  picture  or 
piece  of  music  always  varied  but  always  uniform."  Here 
we  have  laid  open  the  secret  of  the  Brahmanical  emana- 
tions, the  source  of  the  pleroma  and  eons  of  the  Gnostics, 
the  origin  of  nearly  all  that  is  most  profound  in  Oriental 
religion  and  philosophy.  There  are  many  things  also,  in 
E<y  fian  the  writings  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  which 
speculation.  geem  to  anticipate  the  teachings  •  of  modern 
pantheism.  •  The  inscription  on  the  veiled  image  at  Sais, 
"  I  am  all  that  was,  is,  and  shall  be,  and  my  veil  no  mortal 
could  ever  uplift,"  may  have  been  the  utterance  of  a  pan- 
theistic creed  ;  as  also, the  following  words,  taken  by  Cud- 
worth  from  the  Trismegistic  or  Herm'aic  books :  "  He 
(God)  is  both  incorporeal  and  omnicorporeal ;  for  there  is 
nothing  of  any  body  which  he  is  not ;  he  is  all  things  that 
are,  and  therefore  he  hath  all  names ;  because  all  things 
are  from  one  father ;  and  therefore  he  hath  no  name,  be- 


PANTHEISM.  61 

cause  he  is  the  father  of  all  things."1  Such  passages 
abound  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  Egyptians;  but  to 
search  them  out,  and  discriminate  between  those  which 
teach  pantheism  and  those  which  teach  a  primitive  mon- 
otheism, would  be  a  wearisome,  if  it  were  a  possible,  task. 

Recent  researches  have  shown,  however,  that  Primitive 
not  all  of  those  old  speculations  were  mere  fore-  mouotlieism- 
shadowings  of  Spinozism;  that  some  of  them,  at  least, 
are  worthy  to  be  put  in  a  nobler  category;  that  they 
may  have  been,  and  probably  were,  instances  of  a  more 
or  less  pure  monotheism.  The  study  of  language  and 
mythology,  pursued  with  such  eagerness  by  certain  Ger- 
man and  French  scholars,  has  nearly  demonstrated  that 
there  was,  far  away  beyond  the  ages  of  polytheism,  a 
general  belief  in  the  God  of  Balaam  and  Melchisedek. 
Thus  the  testimony  of  science  is  confirming  the  scriptural 
record.  And  who  knows  but  it  may  yet  be  found  that 
many  dwelling  in  the  shadow  of  paganism,  and  now 
called  pantheists,  were  worshippers  of  the  true  God  ? 
"  We  see  in  the  history  of  the  religions  of  China,"  says 
Professor  Martin,  of  the  Imperial  College  at  Pekin,  "  a 
process  directly  the  reverse  of  that  which  cer- 

The  Chinese. 

tain  atheistic  writers  of  modern  Europe  assert 
to  be  the  natural  progress  of  the  human  mind.  Accord- 
ing to  them,  men  set  out  with  the  belief  of  many  gods, 
which  they  at  length  reduce  to  unity,  and  finally  supersede 
by  recognizing  the  laws  of  nature  as  independent  of  a 
personal  Administrator.  The  history  of  China  is  fatal  to 
this  theory.  The  worship  of  one  God  is  the  oldest  form 
of  Chinese  religion,  and  idolatry  is  an  innovation."2 

i  Cud  worth,  Vol.  I.,  p.  589.  2  New  Englander,  April,  1869. 


62  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

There  is  evidence  also  in  the  Orphic  poetry  of 

The  Greeks.     _, 

Greece,  that  the  most  ancient  thinkers  ot  that 
land  believed  in  one  God,  —  "one  supreme,  unmade 
Deity,  the  original  of  all  things.""  Was  there  nothing  of 
this  nature  in  the  mind  of  the  Greek  poet  when  he  wrote, 
"Nothing  is  accomplished  on  the  earth  without  thee,  O 
God,  save  the  deeds  which  the  wicked  perpetrate  in  their 
folly"?  And  what  shall  we  say  to  the  words  of  Soph- 
ocles in  the  CEdipus?  "  May  destiny  aid  me  to  preserve 
unsullied  the  purity  of  my  words  and  of  all  my  actions, 
according  to  those  sublime  laws  which,  brought  forth  in 
the  celestial  heights,  have  Heaven  alone  for  their  father, 
to  which  the  race  of  mortal  men  did  not  give  birth,  and 
which  oblivion  shall  never  entomb.  In  them  is  a  supreme 
God,  and  one  who  waxes  not  old."  Or  listen  to  this, 
found  on  a  roll  of  papyrus  in  the  coffin  of  an  Egyptian 
mummy :  "  I  am  the  Most  Holy,  the  Creator  of  all  that 
replenishes  the  earth,  and  of  the  earth  itself,  habitation  of 

mortals.  I  am  the  Prince  of  the  infinite  ages. 
fromEgypt.  *  am  tne  great  and  mighty  God,  the  Most  High, 

shining  in  the  midst  of  the  careering  stars,  and 
of  the  armies  which  praise  me  over  thy  head.  It  is  I  who 
chastise  and  who  judge  the  evil  doers  and  the  persecutors 
of  godly  men.  I  discover  and  confound  the  liars.  I  am 
the  all-seeing  Judge  and  Avenger;  the  guardian  of  my 
laws  is  the  land  of  righteousness."  Here,  now,  is  a  voice, 
coining  to  us  out  of  the  ancient  wonder-land,  from  a  time 
far  beyond  its  degrading  idolatries,  which  seems  to  catch 
up  and  sound  forward  the  words  spoken  to  Adam  and 
Noah. 

Ernest  Naville,   late   Professor   of   Philosophy   in   the 


PANTHEISM.  63 

University  of  Geneva,  has  taken  pains  to  gather 

f  ,,     .  .       ,  .       Conclusion 

up  these  vestiges  of  ancient  monotheism,  in  his   of  Professor 

Navillc 

able  work  entitled  "  The  Heavenly  Father ; " 
and  he  asks,  in  view  of  the  mass  of  evidence  they  afford, 
"  Did  humanity  begin  with  a  coarse  fetichism,  and  thence 
rise  by  slow  degrees  to  higher  conceptions?  Do  the 
traces  of  comparatively  pure  monotheism  first  show  them- 
selves in  the  most  recent  periods  of  idolatry  ?  Contem- 
porary science,"  he  adds,  "  inclines  more  and  more  to  an- 
swer in  the  negative.  It  is  in  the  most  ancient  'historical 
ground,  that  the  laborious  investigators  of  the  past  meet 
with  the  most  elevated  ideas  of  religion.  Cut  to  the 
ground  a  young  and  vigorous  beech  tree,  and  come  back  a 
few  years  afterwards :  in  place  of  the  tree  cut  down  you 
will  find  coppice  wood ;  the  sap  which  nourished  a  single 
trunk  has  been  divided  among  a  multitude  of  shoots. 
This  comparison  expresses  well  enough  the  opinion  which 
tends  to  prevail  among  our  learned  men  on  the  subject  of 
the  historical  development  of  religions.  The  idea  of  the 
only  God  is  at  the  root ;  it  is  primitive,  polytheism  is  de- 
rivative. A  forgotten,  and  as  it  were  slumbering,  mono- 
theism exists  before  the  worship  of  idols ;  it  is  the  con- 
cealed trunk  which  supports  them,  but  the  idols  have 
absorbed  all  the  sap."  Nor  does  Professor  Naville  reach 
this  conclusion  by  any  path  in  which  his  own  faith  in 
Christianity  might  sway  him.  Distrusting  himself,  he 
appeals  to  those  who  may  claim  to  speak  with  authority 
on 'the  subject;  and  the  response  which  he  gets  from  one 
of  the  most  learned  of  archaaologists  is,  "The  general 
impression  of  the  most  distinguished  mythologists  of  the 

i  Published  by  W.  V.  Spencer,  Boston,  1867. 


64  HALF  TBUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

present  day  is,  that  monotheism  is  at  the  foundation  of 
all  pagan  mythology." l     It  is  now  generally  held  by  the 
best  mythologists,  that  fetichism  is  a  less  ancient  form  of 
religion  than  the  worship  of  ancestors.     Religious  honors, 
paid  to  famous  progenitors,  were  the  rites  which  naturally 
grew  up  first,  after  men  had  forgotten  the  true  God.     A 
distinguished   ancestor  had   some  symbol,  —  a 
fetich/sm.      dog,  crocodile,  reindeer,  or  other  natural  object, 
—  by  which  he  was  known  among  his  contem- 
poraries, and  which  gradually  became  the  fetich  of  his  de- 
scendants.    The  synonyme  for  "  fetich,"  in  the  dialect  of 
the  North  American  Indians,  seems  to  have  been  "  totem ; " 
and  the  religious  worship  which  grew  up  among 
3iheVudia™8°f  tnem  nas  been  called  totemism.     Hence  Long- 
fellow says,  in  one  of  his  poems,  — 

"  And  they  painted  on  the  grave-posts 
Of  the  graves,  yet  unforgotten, 
Each  his  own  ancestral  totem, 
Each  the  symbol  of  his  household; 
Figures  of  the  bear  and  reindeer, 
Of  the  turtle,  crane,  and  beaver." 

But  whether  or  not  we  have  here  a  true  account  of  the 
origin  of  fetichism,  "  it  is  enough  for  my  purpose,"  again 
using  the  words  of  Naville,  "  to  have  shown  that  it  is  not 
merely  the  grand  tradition  guaranteed  by  the  Christian 
faith,  but  the  most  distinctly  marked  current  of  contem- 
porary science,  which  tells  us  that  God  shone  upon  the 
cradle  of  the  species.  The  August  Form  was  veiled,  and 
idolatry,  with  its  train  of  shameful  rites,  shows  itself  in 
history  as  the  result  of  a  fall  which  calls  for  a  restoration, 

i  Pictet. 


PANTHEISM.  65 

rather  than   as   the   point   of  departure   of  a   continued 
progress." 

Therefore,  without  going  farther  into  the  his- 

_  ..        Spinoza  our 

tory  of  ancient  systems,  and  admitting  that  the  starting- 
leaven  of  pantheism  was  in  many  of  them,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  I  come  back  to  the  lonely  exile  of 
Amsterdam  as  our  proper  starting-point  in  the  survey 
undertaken.  It  is  cheering  to  find  that  the  latest  re- 
searches of  scholars  and  critics  are  falling  in  so  well  with 
our  inspired  traditions.  This  look  into  the  remote  past, 
through  the  glass  of  science,  also  strengthens  our  position 
as  to  the  first  origin  and  the  genesis  of  all  unbelief.  Sepa- 
rated from  God,  the  human  mind  becomes  lost  in  its  own 
speculations.  As  it  turns  back  to  him,  it  partakes  again 
of  the  spirit  of  a  pure  monotheism,  which  the  students  of 
history  may  have  sometimes  unjustly  condemned  as  pan- 
theism. Presuming  it  to  be  such,  they  have  found  it  to 
be  such,  as  there  are  not  wanting  those  who  have  found 
the  same  thing  in  the  New  Testament.  Where,  however, 
the  human  mind  has  not  thus  turned  back,  but  has  kept 
on  with  its  face  away  from  God,  it  has  taken  one  or  the 
other  of  two  opposite  paths  of  infidelity.  Which  of 
these  two  paths  it  has  in  any  case  taken,  has  depended  on 
its  inherent  tendency,  whether  to  make  the  outward  or 
the  inward  its  starting-point  of  inquiry.  There  did  un- 
questionably exist  in  ancient  times,  and  in  various  coun- 
tries, men  occupied  with  philosophy  and  religion  who 
sought  their  data  in  the  inner  world  of  consciousness.  So 
far  as  those  thinkers  were  without  knowledge  of  the  true 
God,  they  undoubtedly  inclined  to  pantheism,  —  losing  the 
5 


66  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

human  in  the  divine,  substituting  emanation  for  creation, 
and  confounding  the  Maker  of  all  things  with  the  work  of 
his  hands. 

But  this  ancient  pantheism  was  unshapen, 
belSrfwm  changeable,  crude,  indeterminate,  vague.  It 
was  forever  repeating  itself  in  one  form  or  an- 
other; slightly  varied,  to  suit  the  genius  of  different 
countries  and  ages,  yet  on  the  whole  confirming  the  truth 
of  Dugald  Stewart's  remark,  who  says,  in  vie*vv  of  the 
frequent  recurrences  of  the  same  essential  error,  "  One  is 
almost  tempted  to  believe  that  human  invention  is  limit- 
ed, like  a  barrel  organ,  to  a  specific  number  of  tunes." 
Gleams  of  the  vast  conception,  now  eagerly  grasped  and 
now  cast  aside,  flash  out  upon  us  all  along  in  the  path- 
ways of  ancient  thought ;  but  that  conception  seems  never 
to  come  forth,  and  plant  itself  in  solid  proportions  before 
us ;  it  never  unfolds  into  a  well-adjusted  and  comprehen- 
sive system.  We  catch  only  elusive  glimpses  of  the 
vision ;  vague  hints  and  impressions,  with  no  fixed  centre 
about  which  to  crystallize;  faint  foreshado wings  of  the 
doctrine  whose  elaborator  and  expounder  was  yet  to  come, 
course  of  r^^ie  weary  a»es  °f  paganism  circled  on.  IIu- 
thouSt  manity,  cut  off  from  God,'  groped  after  its  an- 
sketehed.  cient  blessedness,  but  went  sounding  on  a  dim 
and  perilous  way.  The  great  lights  of  philosophy  burned 
out,  one  after  another,  or  withdrew  into  the  heavens. 
Then  "  the  Desire  of  all  nations "  appeared.  Wise  men' 
followed  his  star,  and,  paying  their  homage  at  his  fbet, 
found  again  the  glory  which  had  been  lost.  But  not  all. 
were  wise.  "  He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own  received 
him  not."  And  that  nation  of  despisers  and  rejecters, 


PANTHEISM.  67 

dashed  in  pieces  for  its  unbelief,  was  scattered  over  the 
world.  The  Great  Light,  seen  of  them  that  sat  in  the 
region  and  shadow  of  death,  rose  towards  the  meridian ; 
and  to  it  the  moon  and  stars  did  .obeisance.  After  dis- 
playing for  a  time  its  glory,  so  full  of  grace  and  truth,  the 
mists  of  human  selfishness  began  to  obscure  it.  It  was 
hidden  from  the  world  on  which  it  had  briefly  shone  in 
triumph,  and  the  night  of  the  dark  ages  descended.  And 
not  until  those  ages  had  passed  away,  in  the  full  morning 
of  modern  literature,  when  the  Bible  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  people,  and  humanity  everywhere  was  awaking  as  to 
some  new  destiny,  did  the  high  priest  of  pantheism  ap- 
pear. Born  of  the  proud  but  rejected  stock,  spurning 
Judaism,  and  seeing  no  beauty  in  Christ,  he  braves  the 
religious  faith  of  his  own  time,  and  claims  to  interpret  the 
dream  of  benighted  philosophy. 

Yes,  to  Spinoza  belongs  the  honor,  whatever 

Spinoza's 

that  may  be,  of  grasping  the  principle  of  former  system  the 
impressions  and  tendencies,  and  fixing  forever 
the  laws  and  limits  of  pantheistic  speculation.  He  seized 
the  essence  of  the  world-old  dream.  And  not  only  that, 
but  he  made  it  stand  forth  so  completely  in  his  exposition, 
that  he  may  be  said  to  have  necessitated  the  formulas  of 
his  most  famous  successors ;  as  Newton,  when  he  enun- 
ciated the  principle  of  gravitation,  became  virtually  the 
author  of  all  subsequent  astronomy.  The  influence  of 
^pinoza  in  the  history  of  pantheistic  thinking,  reminds  us 
6f  the  great  river  which  flows  through  the  central  valley 
of  the  United  States.  His  mind  was  the  point,  far  up  in 
•untrodden-  wilds,  where  previous  tendencies  were  first 
gathered  into 'a  single  fountain  head.  He  scooped  the 


68  HALF    TRCJTHS    AND    THE    TEUTH. 

channel  into  which  the  brooklets  emptied  themselves,  and 
which  drained  the  neighboring  swales  and  marshes.  It 
was  the  rush  of  his  tireless  genius  that  gave  unity,  direc- 
tion, and  momentum- to  the  stream.  He  has  had  many 
successors  ;  but,  drawn  irresistibly  towards  the  main  cur- 
rent, they  at  length  lose  their  independent  life,  and  be- 
come, as  it  were,  the  tributaries  of  his  greatness. 

I  must  not  omit  here,  in  claiming  this  pre- 
Sruno8.  °f  ceclence  for  Spinoza,  to  mention  one  other  name 
which  is  nearly  related  to  the  rise  of  pantheism 
in  modern  times.  Giordano  Bruno  is  thought  by  some  to 
deserve  the  place  assigned  to  the  great  Hebrew  thinker. 
Even  Willis,  the  biographer  of  Spinoza,  and  editor  of  his 
Correspondence  and  Ethics,  inclines  to  this  opinion.  He 
thinks  it  impossible  that  Spinoza  should  not  have  been 
familiar  with  the  works  of  Bruno,  and  wonders  that  he 
nowhere  alludes  to  them,  while  they  so  thoroughly  antici- 
pate the  main  doctrines  of  his  system.  "  In  the  present 
day,"  says  he,  "  we  should  hold  the  man  who  borrowed  so 
freely  as  our  philosopher  has  certainly  done  from  his  pred- 
ecessor, to  be  guilty  of  unmitigated  plagiarism,  did  he 
fail  to  acknowledge  the  obligation."1  But  it  is  by  no 
means  certain  that  Spinoza  deserves  this  wound  in  the 
house  of  his  friends.  He  must  be  acquitted  of  anything 
approaching  dishonesty.  He  had  too  much  intellectual 
pride,  to  say  nothing  of  his  general  character,  ever  to 
deck  himself  with  the  plumes  of  another.  Bruno  certainly 
had  as  many  advantages  as  the  outcast  Jew  for  becoming 
the  leader  of  his  school,  if  he  deserved  to  be.  He  was 
not  of  the  rejected  race,  but  a  Christian  Catholic.  He  had 

i  Life,  Correspondence,  and  Ethics,  General  Introduction,  p.  11. 


PANTHEISM.  69 

the  favor  of  public  position  in  his  native  Italy,  resided  in 
England  for  a  time,  where  he  was  the  friend  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  and  received  many  attentions  from  the  queen, 
was  an  expounder  of  the  views  of  Copernicus,  and  finally 
acquired  the  renown  of  martyrdom  at  the  stake  for  his 
scientific  heresies.  His  writings  had  been  before  the 
world  three  quarters  of  a  century,  when  the  Ethics  of 
Spinoza  appeared.  It  is  certainly  strange,  considering  the 
whole  case,  that  Spinoza,  if  a  mere  copyist  of  his  views, 
should  have  so  thoroughly  displaced  him,  and  usurped  all 
his  honors.  The  natural  conclusion  is,  that  Bruno,  though 
a  pantheist  in  many  of  his  utterances,  was  not  always 
consistent  with  his  theory,  and  that  he  lacked  the  system- 
atizing power  which  was  so  remarkable  in  Spinoza.  But 
whatever  the  verdict  of  justice  should  be,  as  between 
these  two  masters,  it  is  idle  to  quarrel  now  with  the 
judgment  of  history.  The  scholarship  of  two  centuries 
has  spoken,  nor  is  it  probable  that  any  good  .cause  ban  be 
discovered  for  reversing  its  decision.1 


Spinoza  did  his  work  with  every  help  towards 

J  Intellectual 

doing  it  well.     The  gracious  God,  who  makes   activity  of 

the  age  fa- 

his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  the  good,  with-  vorabie  to 
held  from  the  daring  thinker  no  advantage.     It 
was  the  seventeenth  century;  that  century  unsurpassed 
for  triumphs  of  the   human  intellect  in  the  higher  and 
more   difficult   fields    of  inquiry.     Luther   died 
eighty-six  years  before   Spinoza  was  born.     It  ™ti?n.f°r 
was  the   age   of  the  Dutch   Republic ;   of  the 

1  Mr.  Lewes,  the  warm  eulogist  of  Bruno,  and  who  has  given  us  a  graphic 
sketch  of  his  eventful  life,  says  of  his  philosophy,  "Its  condemnation  is  writ- 
ten in  the  fact  of  its  neglect."  —  Biog.  Hist.  Phil.,  p.  388. 


70  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

English  Commonwealth;    of  Richelieu,  and   the   French 

Academy,  and  the  Sorbonne.     Bacon's  great  work,  though 

completed,  was  yet  a  buried  seed,  not  destined 

Bacon.  J 

to  rise  and  overshadow  the  schools  of  thought 
till  after  Spinoza  had  passed  away.  The  founder  of  the 
pantheistic  school  of  free-thinkers  lived,  and  died,  amidst 
the  full  blaze  of  the  philosophy  whose  most  recent  master 
had  been  Descartes.  He  must  have  known  the  story  of 

the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  who,  not  long  before  his 
FathS:rim  own  familv>  had,  like  them,  sought  refuge  from 

persecution  in  Holland.  His  life  synchronized 
with  the  palmy  period  of  the  Puritan  theocracy  in  New 
England.  Prodigies  of  human  energy,  not  merely  in  indi- 
viduals, but  on  a  national  scale,  were  enacting  all  around 

him.  Richelieu's  administration  was  the  won- 
cromweiif  nd  der  of  Europe.  Spinoza  watched  the  career  of 

Cromwell,  and  saw  him  at  the  height  of  his 
power.  In  the  near  past  was  the  story  of  Dutch  heroism, 
linsf  to  rescue  a  country  from  Spanish 


The  Dutch. 

tyranny,  and  from  the  invading  sea.     1  he  many 

examples  of  endurance  and  devotion  thus  afforded  could 

not  fail  to  inspire  the  ardent  Hebrew.     It  was  a  time  for 

mediocrity  to  keep  out  of  sight.     To  venture  forth,  and 

claim  a  place  among  the  leaders  of  the  age,  became  only 

such  as  were  conscious  of  their  ability  to  measure  swords 

with  giants.     John  Locke  was  born  in  the  same 

year  as  Spinoza;  but  his  influence,  especially  in 

the  sphere  of  religious  thinking,  belongs  to  a  later  age. 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  ten  years  younger  than 

Spinoza;    but   his   imperial  genius,  though  fol- 

lowing in  the  track  of  Bacon  and  Locke,  gave  a  lustre  to 


PANTHEISM.  71 

the  times  of  which  it  was  born.  It  was  the  age  of  the 
Bodleian  Library,  the  age  of  faith  in  the  moderns.  Men 
had  grown  less  servile  towards  the  old  masters,  and  the 
Baconian  maxim  that  "  we  are  the  ancients  "  was  in  every 
student's  mouth.  We  have  seen  that  Spinoza  corre- 
sponded with  Leibnitz,  and  that  he  was  courted  by  Louis 
XIV.  of  France.  Surely,  if  there  were  any  possibilities 
of  greatness  in  him,  the  attentions  he  received,  and  the 
examples  all  about  him,  must  have  aroused  them  to  do 
their  utmost. 

Scientific  research  was  everywhere  active,  and 
crowned  with  remarkable  success,  in  the  time  of  J^Snce 
Spinoza.     It  was   in  his   century  that  Harvey 
made  his  famous  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood; 
that  Galileo  became  known  as  the  expounder  of  the  law 
of  the  equilibrium  of  bodies,  the  laws  of  accelerated  and 
retarded  motion,   and  the  parabolic  nature   of  the  curve 
described  by  projectiles ;   in  his  age  that  Torricelli  and 
Pascal  solved  the  problem  of  the  pressure  of  the  atmos- 
phere ;  that  Napier  invented  the  logarithmic  tables ;  that 
the   binomial   theorem    was    discovered,  letters 
used  for  notation,  algebra  applied  to  the  inves-   Mtithemat- 
tigation   of   the   properties    of  curves.     Pascal 
and   Descartes   expounded   the   cycloid;   Kepler   showed 
that  the  circle  is  composed  of  an  infinite  number  of  trian- 
gles, the  sphere  of  an  infinite  number  of  pyramids,  the 
cylinder   of  nn   infinity   of  prisms.      Spinoza   beheld,   in 
astronomy,  the   most  wonderful   discoveries   of 

Astronomy. 

modern   times.     Kepler,  a   believer  in   the  old 
philosophy  rather  than  the  new,  had  discovered  that  the 
planetary  orbits   are   ellipses;   that   the  sun   is   fixed   in 


72  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

one  of  the  foci  of  all  those  orbits  ;  that  the  radius  vector 
of  each  planet  passes  over  equal  spaces  in  equal  times; 
that  the  square  of  the  time  of  revolution  is,  in  every 
instance,  as  the  cube  of  the  mean  distance  from  the 
sun.  In  the  midst  of  these  sublime  achieve- 

Optics.  .  . 

ments,  optics  came  forward  to  lend  its  helping 
hand.  The  telescope,  invented  by  Galileo,  vastly  widened 
the  field  of  "the  science  of  space."  The  moons  of  Jupiter 
were  observed ;  and  the  phases  of  Venus,  and  the  occulta- 
tions  of  the  planets,  were  used  as  data  in  determining 
longitude. 

But  it  was  not  alone  in  the  study  of  nature 
fhJfleven6  °f  tnat  tnis  age  excelled.  Spinoza  was  the  cen- 
tury!*1 C  temporary  of  the  greatest  lights  'in  modern  lit- 
erature,—  the  greatest  lights  in  all  literature. 
The  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  the  golden 
age  of  the  drama.  Corneille,  Calderon,  Shakespeare,  Jon- 
son,  Beaumont  "and  Fletcher  lived  and  wrote  during  that 
period.  Cervantes  gave  to  the  world  Don  Quixote  in  this 
age.  John  Milton  was  the  contemporary  of  Spinoza.  To 
show  the  activity  of  the  theological  and  religious  mind  in 
this  era,  it  is  needful  only  to  name  the  West- 
JSyf Cal  minster  Assembly,  the  Synod  of  Dort,  the  con- 
troversy between  Augustinians  and  Arminians, 
Port  Royal,  Jansenism.  What  splendor  of  intellect,  what 
keenness  of  logic,  what  patience  of  labor,  and  how  great 
wealth  of  piety  and  burning  devotion  are  called  up  to  our 
minds  by  the  mention  of  such  names  as  John  Howe, 
Richard  Baxter,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Isaac  Barrow,  John 
Owen,  Stillingfleet,  Tillotson,  Fenelon,  Bossuet,  Flechier, 
Bourdaloue ;  all  of  which  belong  to  the  age  of  Spinoza. 


PANTHEISM.  73 

It  was  in  the  very  focus  of  all  this  unparalleled  bril- 
liancy of  thought,  with  a  mighty  hunger  for  truth,  driven 
to  his  task  by  the  persecution  of  friends,  and  every  energy 
aroused  to  its  utmost  by  the  great  examples  about  him, 
that  the  champion  of  pantheism  took  up  his  problem. 
God  seemed,  in  his  providence,  to  have  specially  arranged 
for  the  solution  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances 
possible.  The  man,  the  age,  and  the  immediate  influences 
under  which  he  acted,  were  all  that  the  most  earnest 
friends  of  the  cause  could  desire.  If  it  failed  despite 
these  signal  advantages,  it  would  fail  utterly 
and  irrecoverably ;  and  therefore  God  did  not  Jtlrpole. 
withhold  them.  Wishing  to  show  to  his  chil- 
dren that  the  speculation  they  had  chased  so  many  ages 
was  a  baseless  dream,  he  allowed  it  every  opportunity  for 
proving  itself  true.  When  all  things  were  ready,  and 
victory  seemed  most  likely  to  crown  the  adventure,  the 
word  was  given,  Come  forth  into  the  arena ;  produce  your 
cause,  and  set  in  order  your  arguments. 


1 

LECTURE   II. 

THE  NATURE  AND  GROUNDS  OF  PANTHEISM. 

A  GENERAL  definition  of  pantheism  may  be 
?aeatheism°f  Siven    irl  few   words.      It  is   tlic   doctrine  that 

God  includes  all  reality,  and  is  identical  with  it, 
nothing  besides  him  really  existing.  To  use  t'he  Greek 
phrase,  he  is  ?o  e»  xai  10  nav — the  One  and  the  All. 
Spinoza's  way  of  stating  it  is,  "  Besides  God,  no  substance 
can  exist,  or  be  conceived  to  exist."  * 

Howitdif-         The  doctrine  thus   enunciated  will  be  made 
ttoeJ8fm°aud     clearer,  perhaps,  by  comparing  it  with  theism 

and  atheism.  The  theist"  separates  nature  from 
God,  in  his  system,  and  recognizes  the  existence  of  both ; 
the  atheist  starts  from  nature,  and  denies  the  existence  of 
God;  the  pantheist  starts  from  God,  and  denies  the  ex- 
istence of  nature.  Atheists  and  pantheists  agree  in 
opposing  the  theist,  alleging  that  his  doctrine  involves  a 
species  of  dualism,  —  not  the  dualism  of  Zoroaster  and  the 
Manichaeans,  which  asserts  the  eternity  of  matter  and  of 
moral  evil,  but  that  distinction  between  the  Creator  and 
the  creation  which  admits  of  secondary  causes  in  nature, 
and -of  free-will  in  the  rational  creature.  The  dualism  is 
only  that  which  is  necessary  in  order  to  moral  govern- 

*  Ethics,  Tart  1,  Prop,  xiv. 


PANTHEISM.  75 

ment  and  responsible  action.  Yet  objection  is  made  to  it, 
as  not  evolving  all  reality  out  of  a  single  principle ;  as 
implying  an  ethical  universe,  whereas  all  existence  is  em- 
braced under  the  natural,  and  must  be  so  regarded,  or 
there  can  be  no  simple  and  perfect  philosophy.  The  atheist 
and  pantheist  are  alike  in  starting  with  a  single  postulate, 
which,  they  claim,  is  all-inclusive ;  and  they  throw  out 
the  matter  of  freedom  and  responsibility  for  the  assumed 
philosophical  advantage  of  entire  unity  of  system.  But 
though  alike  in  standing  upon  a  basis  of  monism,  they 
seem  nevertheless  to  be  in  direct  and  necessary  antagonism 
to^each  other.  One  of  them  does  not  believe  in  any  God, 
the  other  believes  in  nothing  but  God.  This  hostility  is 
apparent  rather  than  real,  however,  at  least  in  its  religious 
aspect ;  is  not  so  much  in  ideas  as  in  language.  W]iei.cin 
When  the  atheist  has  explained  what  he  means  jSJSSSS?* 
by  the  word  "  nature,"  and  the  pantheist  defines  !18Tce* 
that  which  he  chooses  to  call  "  God,"  it  is  often  clear  that 
they  both  mean  the  same  thing ;  that  they  occupy  common 
ground  in  their  attitude  towards  Christianity,  although  their 
methods  of  philosophizing  may  be  opposite.-  One  denying 
nature,  and  the  other  everything  but  nature,  it  is  clear 
that  they  must  alike  reject  the  swper-natural.  The  uniniti- 
ated reader  gets  a  profound  impression  of  the  piety  of 
Spinoza  while  reading  the  pages  in  which  Novalis  extols 
him  as  "the  God-intoxicated  man;"  but  when  he  learns 
that  the  "  God  "  which  produced  this  intoxication  was  only 
an  impersonal  substance  constituting  the  universe,  he 
knows  that  he  has  been  misled  by  a  verbal  juggle.  Pie- 
ty quite  as  good  as  this  might  be  legitimately  felt,  and 
no  doubt  was,  by  Auguste  Comte,  if  not  also  by  Baron 
d'Holbach. 


76  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Lan<mn"c  And  here  we  discover,  at  the  very  threshold 
tstfbtteir  °f  its  temple,  one  of  the  vices  of  pantheism.  It 
)US'  is  less  honest  than  atheism.  Has  it  at  first 
sight  a  somewhat  noble  and  captivating  look?  This  is 
because  it  puts  on  disguises.  It  uses  the  language  of 
theism,  and  even  of  Christianity,  to  inculcate  a  doctrine 
which  no  Christian  or  theist  can  for  a  moment  think  of 
entertaining.  Herder  and  Schleiermacher,  pointing  to  the 
verbal  dress  in  which  Spinoza's  thoughts  were  at  times 
put,  might  seem  to  have  a  warrant  for  insisting  that  he 
was  a  Christian  ;  and  Schleiermacher  might  say  that  he 
was  not  as  impious  as  his  critics  declared  him  to  be,  when 
once  in  the  midst  of  a  sermon  he  exclaimed,  "  Offer  up  with 
me  a  lock  of  hair  to  the  manes  of  the  rejected  but  holy 
Spinoza."  It  would  seem,  however,  from  the  manner  in 
which  it  is  here  proposed  to  honor  Spinoza,  that  the^enthu- 
siastic  preacher,  to  say  nothing  of  the  philosopher  himself, 
was  in  a  state  of  mind  bordering  on  paganism.  Justly 
does  Mr.  Morell  say,  speaking  of  the  theistic  language  of 
Spinoza,  "  A  being  to  whom  understanding,  will,  and  even 
personality  is  denied ;  a  being  who  does  not  create,  but 
simply  is  /  who  does  not  act,  but  simply  unfolds ;  who  doe.s 
not  purpose,  but  brings  all  things  to  pass  by  the  necessary 
law  of  his  own  existence,  —  such  a  being  cannot  be  a  father, 
a  friend,  a  benefactor ;  in  a  word,  cannot  be  a  God  to  man, 
for  man  is  but  a  part  of  himself.  It  may  be  more  correct 
to  term  the  philosophy  of  Spinoza  a  pantheism  than  an 
atheism ;  but  if  we  take  the  common  idea  or  definition  of 
Deity  as  valid,  then  assuredly  we  must  conclude  that  the 
God  of  Spinoza  is  no  God,  and  that  his  pantheism  is  only 
a  more  imposing  form  of  atheism."  There  is  a  tradition 


PANTHEISM.  77 

that  Spinoza,  when  about  to  publish  on.e  of  his  pantheistic 
writings,  showed  it  to  a  friend,  and  that  the  word  "  God  " 
was  not  to  be  found  in  it,  but  only  the  term  "  nature,"  where 
the  other  word  stood  in  the  printed  volume.  His  friend, 
it  is  said,  induced  him  to  make  this  change  wherever  he 
could,  substituting  the  theistic  for  the  atheistic  term,  fear- 
ing that  if  he  did  nofy  the  treatise  would  make  no  disciples, 
but  only  arouse  dangerous  hostility.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
see  that  Spinoza  uses  these  terms  interchangeably.  He 
says,  in  the  Introduction  to  the  Fourth  Part  of  the  Ethics, 
"  The  eternal  and  infinite  being  whom  we  call  God  or  Na- 
ture, as  he  exists  of  necessity,  so  does  he  act  of  necessity." 
He  therefore  might  have  altered  his  manuscript  to  mislead 
or  conciliate  a  class  of  readers.  But  the  story  may  well 
be  doubted ;  for  Spinoza,  whatever  must  be  said  of  his 
system,  was  a  thoroughly  fearless  man,  despising  hypocrisy, 
and  scorning  to  turn  his  hand  over  in  the  hope  of  disarming 
opposition.  The  tradition  may  have  arisen  from  the  fact 
that  some  of  his  works  were  published  under  fictitious 
names  in  various  parts  of  Europe,  though  without  consul- 
tation with  him,  and  with  such  changes  as  his  admiring 
disciples  thought  would  help  to  give  them  currency  in  the 
philosophical  world. 

This  extraordinary  use  of  lano-uaere,  even  jf 

;  Many  names 

not  intentionally  dishonest,  has,  as  a  matter  ot  for  one 

.  thing-. 

fact,  deceived  many.     It  also  enables  the  pan- 
theist to  make  a  show  of  denying,  and  indignantly  repel- 
ling, any  charges  of  irreverence  or  impiety  that  may  be 
brought   against   him.     He   can   subscribe   to   the    whole 
Christian  vocabulary,  without  making  it  apparent,  except 


78  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

to  those  who  understand  his  system  and  his  definitions, 
that  he  resolves  all  religions,  together  with  everything 
else,  of  whatever  claims  or  appearance,  back  into  an'eternal 
nature-process.  Any  terminology,  from'  that  of  apostolic 
fervor  down  to  the  hardest  scholastic  barbarisms,  can  be 
made  to  serve  his  turn.  John  Sterling,  replying  to  a  re- 
mark made  to  him  one  day  by  his  friend  Thomas  Carlyle, 
said,  "That  is  flat  pantheism."  "And  what  if  it  were 
pot-theism,  if  it  were  true?"  was  Carlyle's  rejoinder.1 
The  audacious  hero-worshipper  was  utterly  indifferent  to 
terms.  They  were  but  the  "  clothes  "  of  philosophy  to  his 
view,  and  might  be  changed  never  so  often,  he  cared  not 
how  often  or  in  what  way,  so  long  as  the  substance  within 
them  remained  intact.  In  the  biography  of  Sterling  which 
Carlyle  wrote,  and  in  which  he  labors  so  hard  to  make 
Sterling  out  a  religious  doubter  essentially  at  one  with 
himself,  he  shows  that  he  was  not  above  playing  the 
juggler,  and  that,  too,  with  so  sacred  a  matter  as  his  friend's 
religious  convictions.  His  complaint  of  Archdeacon  Hare 
for  emphasizing  the  Christian  faith  of  Sterling,  might,  so 
far  as  it  implies  a  one-sided  treatment  of  the  subject,  be 
more  properly  made  against  him.  Among  the  terms 
frequently  used  by  pantheists,  and  which  they  regard  as 
synonymous,  or  nearly  so,  are  Father,  All-Father,  Heavenly 
Father,  Nature,  Substance,  God,  Subject-Object,  World- 
Ego,  Indifference  of  the  Subjective  and  Objective,  the 
Identity-Point  of  Existence  and  Non-existence.  The  lan- 
guage hardly  seems  a  caricature,  in  which  an  English 
Satirist  represents  the  later  disciples  of  Spinoza  as  say- 
ing,— 

i  Carlyle's  Life  of  Sterling  (Boston,  1852),  p.  1G7. 


PANTHEISM.  79 

"  We  worship  the  Absolute-Infinite, 
The  Universe-Ego,  the  Plenary-Void, 
The  Subject-Object  Identified, 
The  great  Nothing-something,  the  Being-Thought, 
That  mouldeth  the  mass  of  chaotic  Nought, 
Whose  beginning  unended,  and  end  unbegun, 
Is  the  One  that  is  All,  and  the  All  that  is  One." 

Thus  it  appears,  from  this  very  slight  examination  of 
the  pantheistic  use,  or  rather  misuse,  of  terms,  that  we  must 
know  the  system  if  we  would  not  be  deceived  by  popular 
expositions  of  it. 

I  pass,  therefore,  to  the  premise  from  which  Knowledge 
Spinoza  set  out,  and  the  method  by  which  he 
finally  reached  his  pantheism.  And  here  I 
must  bespeak  the  forbearance  of  all,  knowing 
how  difficult  it  is  to  represent  his  system  adequately. 
Fortunately  my  purpose  does  not  require  me  to  undertake 
an  exhaustive  statement  of  Spinozism.  I  am  not  assuming 
the  office  of  an  historian  of  philosophy,  but  simply  sketch- 
ing the  general  course  of  speculative  thought,  so  far  as 
may  be  needful  to  show  the  origin  of  a  class  of  popular 
infidelities.  By  keeping  to  the  plain  starting-point  and 
clear  drift  of  Spinozism,  and  not  attempting  what  would 
be  superfluous,  I  shall  hope  to  be  sure  of  my  ground,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  accomplish  all  I  have  purposed. 

I  have  already  intimated  that  Spinoza  was  a  Dcscnrteg 
student  of  Descartes.     It  will  be  proper,  there- 
fore,  to  say  a  few  words  of  that  philosopher,  and 
of  his  peculiar  doctrines.     The  question  has  been  argued 
at  some  length  whether  Spinoza  found  the  germs  of  pan- 


80  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

theism  in  Cartcsianism,  or  in  another  and  earlier  Thig 
system.  One  theory  is,  that  he  was  a  follower  d 
of  Averroes,  and  that  he  took  the  elements  of  his  thinking 
from  the  Arabian  philosophy.  Others  have  maintained 
stoutly  that  he  was  a  Cabalist,  and  found  the  principles 
of  his  pantheism  in  the  comments  of  Maimonides  and 
Aben-Ezra  on  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  But  Spinoza's 
Opinion  of  French  translator,  Saisset,  after  discussing  each 
of  these  views  carefully,  rejects  them  both  as 
untenable,  and  affirms  that  the  true  filiation  is  with  the 
Cartesian  philosophy.  This  conclusion  I  have  adopted, 
for  reasons  yet  to  be  given. 

Rene  Descartes  was  born  near  the  end  of  the 
of  DC*-         sixteenth  century,  of  one  of  the  noble  families 

cartes. 

of  France.  He  is  said  to  have  been  a  sickly 
child,  of  diminutive  size,  noted  for  thoughtfulness  in  his 
earliest  years.  In  this  he  reminds  us  of  Spinoza,  as  also 
in  the  fact  that  he  was  carefully  nurtured  in  the  faith  of 
his  fathers.  His  education  was  intrusted  to  the  Jesuits. 
But  like  the  Hebrew  youth,  yet  to  follow  in  his  steps,  he 
soon  began  to  distrust  tne  lessons  of  his  teachers.  He 
set  almost  no  value  on  all  they  taught  him,  with  the  single 
exception  of  mathematics.  "As  soon  as  I  was  old  enough 
to  be  set  free  from  the  government  of  my  teachers,"  says 
he,  "I  entirely  forsook  the  study  of  letters  ;  and,  determin- 
ing to  seek  no  other  knowledge  than  that  which  Earljr  pur. 
I  could  discover  within  myself,  or  in  the  great  posc' 
book  of  the  world,  I  spent  the  remainder  of  my  youth  in 
travelling."  l  He  therefore  had  before  him  a  double  work 
to  perform :  first  he  must  divest  himself  of  all  notions  thus 

1  Huxley,  Lay  Sermons,  Addresses,  and  Reviews,  p.  321. 


PANTHEISM.  81 

far  acquired ;  and  then  lie  must  find  some  criterion  by 
which  to  distinguish  the  false  from   the  genuine,  in  his 
search  for  truth.     The  rule  he  at  length  adopted  was  cer- 
tainly rigid  enough,  if  adhered  to,  to  guard  him  against 
any  impositions  of  error :  it  was  —  to  accept  no   criterion 
doctrines  but  those  the  truth  of  which  was  too 
clear  to  be  questioned.     We  are  to  see  in  what  direction 
this  principle  led  him,  and  whether  he  or  Spinoza  was 
more  faithful  to  it  in  the  pursuit  of  wisdom.     But  even  in 
regard  to  this  criterion  of  truth,  the  originality  of  Descartes 
has  been  doubted.     May  Spinoza  not  have  taken  this,  too, 
from  the  Arabian  philosophy?     Mr.  Lewes,  in 
his  charming  sketch  of  Algazzali,  quotes  that   «ni  with 

.  .  Descartes. 

remarkable  thinker  as  saying,  "  It  was  evident 
.to  me  that  certain  knowledge  must  be  that  which  explains 
the  object  to  be  known,  in  such  a  manner  that  no  doubt 
can  remain,  so  that  in  future  all  error  and  conjecture  con- 
cerning it  must  be  impossible."  1  By  this  rule,  strictly 
applied,  the  Oriental  student  feund  himself  shut  up  to  his 
own  consciousness  in  the  search  for  truth.  He  found  in 
the  sect  of  the  Soufis,  the  mystics  of  the  East,  the  best 
examples  of  his  principle  in  action ;  though  he  says  that 
some  of  them  went  too  far,  "  imagining  themselves  to  be 
amalgamated  with  God,  or  identified  with  him."  Avoiding 
this  extreme,  which  would  have  made  him  a  Spinozist 
before  Spinoza,  Algazzali  says,  "I  declare  that  the  convic- 
tion was  forced  upon  me  that  the-Soufis  indubitably  walked 
in  the  true  paths  of  salvation.  Their  way  of  life  is  the 
most  beautiful,  and  their  morals  the  purest  that  can  be 
conceived." 

1  Biographical  Hist.  Phil.,  p.  363. 

6 


82  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 


Testimon  though  tne  Cartesian  maxim  for  discover- 

'mS  truth  had  been  held  by  others,  this  does  not 
detract  from  Descartes'  real  merits.  He  was 
not  a  plagiarist  in  the  discreditable  sense  of  the  word,  any 
more  than  Spinoza  was  while  pursuing  paths  already  trod- 
den by  Giordano  Bruno.  Descartes  should,  no  doubt,  have 
the  somewhat  questionable  honor  of  being  the  real  master 
of  the  founder  of  pantheism.  And  inasmuch  as  Spinoza 
claimed,  and  might  with  a  degree  of  justice  claim,  that  his 
conclusions  were  a  logical  development  of  Cartesianism,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  look  at  some  of  Descartes'  fundamental 
doctrines.  Besides  the  coincidence  already  noticed,  it  will 
appear,  I  think,  that  Fontenelle  was  right  in  saying  that 
Spinozism  is  "  Cartesianism  pushed  to  extravagance."  So 
far  as  conclusions  go,  the  remark  of  Dugald  Stewart  is,  no 
doubt,  correct,  that  "  no  two  philosophers  ever  differed  more 
widely  in  their  metaphysical  and  theological  tenets  ;  "  but 
if  we  consider  only  premises  and  methods  of  reasoning, 
it  seems  to  me  far  from  true-  that  Spinoza,  as  Stewart  says, 
"agreed  with  Descartes  in  little  else  than  his  physical 
principles."  That  it  was  from  Descartes  especially  that 
Spinoza  took  the  principles  of  his  system,  will  appear,  I 
think,  as  we  go  forward.  The  maxim,  that  that  only  is  to 
be  accepted  as  true  which  cannot  be  rationally  doubted, 
was,  as  no  one  has  attempted  to  deny,  a  cardinal  rule  with 
Spinoza.  This  appears  in  his  whole  statement  of  the  doc- 
trine of  knowledge  ;  where  he  rejects  as  "hearsay,"  or  as 
"  inadequate,"  all  those  notions  which  do  not  come  through 
the  immediate  grapple  of  the  mind  with  the  very  substance 
of  truth.  We  shall  see  how  strictly  he  adhered  to  this 
rule,  at  least  in  purpose,  and  how  quick  he  was  to  see 


PANTHEISM.  bd 

and   expose    any   violation    of   it   in   the    reasonings    of 
Descartes. 

The  points  in  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  which   Fourmain 
may  be  regarded  as  paving  the  way  to  Spinozism,   cartesiau- 
if  not  indeed  its  very  germs,  are  four  in  num-  lsm' 
ber :  1.  The  renowned  formula  Cogito,  ergo  sum, ;  2.  The 
argument  for  proving  the  divine  existence  ;  3.  The  doctrine 
that  there  are  no  second  causes ;    4.  The  theory  that  all 
truth  is  susceptible  of  proof  by  the  method  of  mathematics. 
In  all  cases  of  disagreement  with  Descartes,  Spinoza,  as 
can  be  successfully  shown,  I  think,  disagreed  with  him 
simply  as  a  logical  and  thorough -going  adherent  to  these 
postulates. 

The  formula  Coc/ito,  erqo  sum  (I  think,  there- 

«  I  think, 

fore  I  am),  was  laid  down  by  Descartes  as  ex-  therefore  i 
pressive  of  the  spirit  of  his  whole  system.     In 
this  sentence  a  broad  meaning  is  given  to  the  word  "  think." 
Descartes  understands  by  thought  any  fact  in  conscious- 
ness,  whether   intellectual,   emotional,  or   voluntary.     "  I 
designate  by  the  word  '  thought,' "  says  he,  "  all  those  facts 
of  which  we  are  internally  conscious ;    and  of  these  our 
consciousness  itself  is  one.     And  so  not  only  to  know,  to 
will,  and  to  imagine,  but  even  to  feel  also,  is  here  the  same 
thing  as  to  think."  l     But  it  has  been  stoutly  denied  that 
the    Cartesian    formula   proves    even   personal    existence. 
Gassendi  thought  it  a  flagrant  breach  of  the  philosopher's 
own  rule  that  nothing  should  be  held  true  which 
admits  of  rational  doubt,  to  infer  the  fact  of  a   Gaanendi 

1  .  and  Huxley. 

person   irom   the    bare    existence    01    thinking. 

The  thinking  alone  is  in  consciousness  ;  and  to  say  that  1 

t  Principia  Philosophise. 


84  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

think,  is  a  begging  of  the  question.  "Prove  that  you 
think,"  says  Descartes'  critic,  "  and  the  assertion  that  you 
exist  will  follow  of  necessity.  The  criticism  is  valid,  no 
doubt ;  and  it  has  been  presented  quite  recently  by  Hux- 
ley, under  a  modified  form.  The  formula  is  analyzed  by 
Huxley,  and  shown  to  contain  three  distinct  propositions, 
one  of  which  asserts  the  action  of  a  person,  another  con- 
scious thought,  and  the  other  personal  existence.  But  only 
the  second  of  these  propositions,  that  affirming  conscious 
thought,  can  endure  the  Cartesian  test  of  certainty.  "Des- 
cartes," says  Huxley,  "  determined  as  he  was  to  strip  off 
all  the  garments  which  the  intellect  weaves  for  itself,  forgot 
this  gossamer  shirt  of  the  self,  to  the  great  detriment, 
and  indeed  ruin,  of  his  toilet  when  he  began  to  clothe  him- 
self again." 1  The  inference  from  this  criticism  is,  that 
Descartes,  when  pushed  back  into  his  main  position,  turns 
out  to  be  the  true  predecessor  of  James  Mill  and  his  school, 
teaching  us  that  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  substances, 
whether  spiritual  or  material,  but  only  with  sensations, 
aside  from  which  there  is  no  ground  of  certain  knowl- 
edge. 

The  justice  of  these  criticisms  I  do  not  deny.  But  in 
showing  the  relation  of  Descartes  to  Spinoza,  he  must  be 
taken  as  he  understood  himself,  and  as  the  pupil  took  him. 
Strictly  speaking,  we  cannot  be  conscious  of  personality ; 
though  we  may  be  said  to  be,  in  a  larger  sense  of  the  term. 
The  "self"  is  something  which  rests  upon  the  primary 
Descartes  to  beliefs  of  the  soul.  Those  beliefs,  as  defined 
he  umu"r-as  m  more  modern  times,  do  not  seem  to  have 
self.  occurred  to  Descartes  as  a  basis  of  certitude. 

i  Lay  Sermons,  Addresses,  and  Reviews,  p.  328. 


PANTHEISM.  85 

He  must  perhaps  be  regarded  as  holding  to  consciousness 
only  in  the  more  restricted  sense ;  and  therefore  we  must 
grant  that  his  reasoning  is  illogical,  although  the  work 
before  us  requires  that  his  conclusions  be  allowed  to  stand 
in  their  historical  connections.  He  clearly  means  to  assert 
that  our  personal  existence  is  not  an  inference,  but  a  da- 
tum of  consciousness.  What  if  a  man  doubts  his  own 
existence,  runs  the  argument.  Yet  he  cannot  doubt  that 
he  doubts ;  therefore  in  any  case  the  existence  is  a  foregone 
conclusion.  It  is  so  true  a  truth  that  the  most  obstinate 
scepticism  cannot  at  all  invalidate  it.  Of  one  thing,  then, 
Descartes  wras  absolutely  certain  ;  and  on  this  immovable 
rock  he  planted  himself,  resolved  to  make  it  a  basis  for  the 
reconstruction  of  human  knowledge.  ^ 

But  having  found  this  standing-place,  his  next  desider- 
atum was  the  Archimedean  lever.  This  second  requisite 
he  claimed  to  have  secured  in  his  method.  The 

_  The  Car- 

baSIS  of  certitude  was  consciousness;    and  the   tcsian 

method  of  certitude  was  deduction,  —  called 
mathematical  because  always  followed  in  the  processes  of 
mathematics.  The  mistake  which  Descartes  here  made, 
and  which  Spinoza  did  not  correct,  wras  in  making  mathe- 
matics a  universal  science  ;  in  assuming  that  all  truth  lay 
within  its  domain,  and  could  be  reached  by  its  methods. 
Spinoza  says,  in  the  Introduction  to  the  Third  Part  of  the 
Ethics,  "I  shall  discuss  human  actions,  appetites,  and 
emotions,  precisely  as  if  the  question  were  of  lines,  planes, 
and  solids."  But  our  minds  are  shut  up  to  a  very  small 
sphere  of  knowledge,  if  we  can  know  only  what  may  be 
demonstrated  like  so  many  theorems  in  geometry.  The 
method  is  inadequate,  and  we  cannot  explain  Descartes' 


86  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

adoption  of  it,  unless,  perhaps,  he  was  biassed  by  his 
great  fondness  for  mathematics.  He  achieved  astonishing 
results  in  the  prosecution  of  this  science,  and  might  prop- 
erly claim  to  be  its  especial  champion  in  his  times.  This 
fact,  together  with  his  declared  distrust  of  any  doctrine 
which  rose  only  to  the  level  of  probability,  may  account 
for  his  error.  He  entered  a  path  from  which,  as  we  shall 
soon  see,  Spinoza  found  him  tripping.  The  refugee  from 
Judaism,  no  less  than  the  revolted  pupil  of  the  Jesuits, 
held  the  maxim  that  only  what  cannot  be  rationally 
doubted  is  worthy  of  belief.  "All  original  truths,"  he 
contended,  "  are  of  such  a  kind  that  they  cannot,  without 
absurdity,  even  be  conceived  to  be  false ;  the  opposites  of 
them  are  contradictions  in  terms."  1 

Regarding  the  formula  Cogito,  ego  sum,  as  an  instance  of 
mathematical  reasoning,  in  strict  conformity  with  the  Car- 
tesian test  of  certainty,  we  are  able  to  see  how  Descartes' 
conclusion  in  the  case  follows.  I  think  is  a  datum  of 
consciousness ;  and  the  conclusion  I  am  is  involved  in 
that  datum,  so  as  to  be  a  necessary  deduction 
fir^Tstop8'  from  it.  The  two,  propositions  are,  in  math- 
ematical phrase,  identical.  That  is,  the  think- 
ing may  stand  as  the  first  term  of  an  equation,  and  the 
existence  as  the  second  term.  One  is  just  as  true  as  the 
other,  the  truth  being  in  each  case  assumed ;  and  there- 
fore, since  things  which  are  equal  to  the  same  thing  are 
equal  to  each  other,  they  may  be  put  side  by  side,  with 
the  sign  of  equality  between  them.  Thought  is  an  indis- 
putable fact,  and  thought  equals  being ;  therefore  being  is 
mathematically  demonstrated. 

1  Froude's  Short  Studies  on  Great  Subjects  (New  York,  1S68),  p.  280. 


PANTHEISM.  87 

Yet   even   here  is   a  joint   in   the  Cartesian 

A  foothold 

harness,  into  which  the  ready  critic  may  thrust  for  spiuo- 

zism. 

his  weapon.  Descartes  did  not  seem  to  see  the 
dangerous  admission  which  his  statement  involved  —  the 
welcome  to  Spinozism,  broad  and  manifest.  In  strict 
fidelity  to  his  own  method,  he  had  not  proved  being  in 
itself,  or  as  an  objective  fact,  but  only  the  subjective  being 
of  which  he  was  conscious.  His  universe  is  shut  within 
the  limits  of  his  own  thinking.  Has  he  proved  existence  ? 
That  we  grant  him ;  but  this  assured  existence  amounts, 
after  all,  to  nothing  but  the  contents  of  his  own  conscious- 
ness. All  mathematical  proof  is  a  series  of  identical 
propositions.  2  ~\-  2  =  4 ;  that  is,  two  added  to  two,  and 
four,  are  simply  different  ways  of  saying  the  same  thing. 
Only  the  being  of  the  subject  involved  in  the  thought  is 
deducible  from  the  fact  of  thinking,  on  mathematical  prin- 
ciples. Therefore  we  must  not  go  out  of  ourselves,  but 
must  draw  the  whole  universe  of  reality  into  ourselves, 
and  make  it  in  some  way  an  integral  part  of  our  own  con- 
sciousness, if  we  would  know  the  universe  as  the  math- 
ematician knows  his  conclusions.  We  must  cease  groping 
abroad,  and  unravel  the  tangled  skein  of  our  own  con- 
scious exercises ;  for  in  these  alone  are  all  demonstrable 
truths  contained.  Thus  does  the  doctrine  of  Spinoza  find 
a  foothold  in  that  of  Descartes.  If  the  master  attempts 
to  prove,  by  the  professed  method,  any  objective  world, 
whether  spiritual  or  material,  the  pupil  may  turn  upon 
him,  and  assail  him  with  his  own  weapon.  It  can  be 
shown,  beyond  the  possibility  of  refutation,  that  Cartesian- 
ism  must  come  at  last  to  nothing  but  a  species  of  subjec- 
tive pantheism.  It  gives  the  seeker  for  truth  no  outlet, 


88  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

but  keeps  him  hopelessly  shut  up,  "  cribbed,  coffined,  and 
confined,"  within  the  narrow  sphere  of  his  own  conscious- 
ness. God,  nature,  and  humanity,  considered  as  objective 
realities,  are  swept  out  of  existence  at  a  single  stroke. 
The  only  reality  left  to  every  man  is  the  conscious  being 
which  he  finds  in  his  own  thinking;  and  this  conclusion 
follows  from  the  Cartesian  formula,  according  to  the  math- 
ematical method,  as  used  by  Descartes  himself  in  the 
search  for  truth. 

^  'IS  easy  ^or  thinkers  of  the  present  day,  who 

are  familiar  with  the  Scotch  or  intuitional  phi- 
ce'18aryf truths  losophy,  to  point  out  the  fatal  error  in  Des- 
saveddDesVe  cartes'  system,  and  to  show  what  the  a-priori 

philosophy  needed,  in  order  to  guard  it  against 
the  approaches  of  pantheism.  Those  necessary  truths, 
first  earnestly  insisted  on  by  Reid,  and  afterwards 
more  clearly  defined  by  Hamilton,  are  our  only  escape 
from  the  bondage  to  which  Cartesianism  dooms  us. 
They  alone  can  break  open  the  door  of  the  prison  in 
which  our  consciousness  holds  us  fast  bound,  and  cast  up 
a  sure  highway  outward,  from  the  subjective  into  the 
objective.  They  bridge  the  chasm,  not  only  between 
thought  and  that  which  thinks,  but  between  the  me  and 
not-me ;  between  the  one  and  the  many,  the  conscious 
and  the  unconscious,  the  spiritual  and  the  material.  They 
carry  us  abroad,  out  of  the  narrow  circle  of  individual 
consciousness,  to  the  limits  of  the  universe  of  truth.  Un- 
der their  ministration,  the  contents  do  not  drop  out  of  our 
ideas,  so  as  to  leave  us  but  the  residuum  of  blank  ideal- 
ism ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  do  they  allow  our  identity  to 
become  lost  in  the  matter  of  our  thoughts ;  but  saving  us 


PANTHEISM.  89 

equally,  both  from  pantheism  and  from  pure  rationalism 
or  sensationalism,  they  reveal  to  us  substance  in  phenom- 
ena, and  body  under  the  dominion  of  spirit.  Descartes 
did  not  discover,  and  the  purpose  of  Spinoza  forbade  him 
to  notice,  this  outlet  of  the  a-priori  philosophy  from  the 
terrible  grasp  and  confinement  of  pantheism. 

But  as  we  have  kept  faithfully  to  the  path  indicated  by 
Descartes'  famous  formula,  in  reaching  the  point  to  which 
we  are  now  come,  so  it  will  be  in  strict  accordance  with 
his  principles  that  we  shall  reach  yet  other  consequences. 
His  demonstration  of  the  being  of  God  completes  the 
basis  which  we  have  already  noticed,  in  part,  for  the  argu- 
ment in  proof  of  pantheism.  "I  think,  there- 
fore I  am,"  is  impregnable  when  judged  by  the 
Cartesian  test  of  truth,  as  Descartes  and  Spi- 


noza  both  thought.     And  the  next  question  is,  favors  spi- 

nozism. 

now  to  rise  from  our  own  thought  to  as  solid  a 
ground  on  which  to  rest  the  divine  existence.  Is  it  pos- 
sible for  us  to  prove,  by  the  exact  mathematical  method, 
in  a  way  which  shall  preclude  all  doubt,  the  being  of  a 
God  who  is  external  to  our  thinking,  and  wholly  indepen- 
dent of  it?  Descartes  answers  in  the  affirmative,  and 
speaks  substantially  as  follows,  in  the  effort  to  make  good 
his  assertion  :  I  have  a  necessary  idea  of  an  absolutely 
perfect  being  ;  but  no  idea  of  a  being  can  be  absolutely 
perfect  unless  that  being  exists,  for  his  existence  must  be 
one  of  the  elements  of  his  perfection  ;  therefore  the  abso- 
lutely perfect  being,  God,  exists.  It  does  not  fall  within 
my  present  plan  to  notice  the  usual  criticisms  of  this  ar- 
gument. Whatever  may  be  said  about  the  assumption 
that  actual  existence  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  a  perfect 


90  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

being,  —  real  objective  existence,  I  mean,  —  no  one  who 
comprehends  the  case  will  deny  that  Descartes'  conclusion 
follows  legitimately  on  pantheistic  ground.  But  to  say 
that  it  follows  on  the  ground  of  pure  theism,  we  must 
assume  that  Descartes  anticipates,  here,  the  philosophy  of 
Reid  ;  that  he  means,  by  "  necessary  idea,"  one  of  those 
primary  truths  which  are  the  foundation  of  all  thinking. 
Thus  only  can  it  be  shown  that  his  conclusive  logic  does 
not  necessitate  pantheism.  The  theological  world  seems, 
more  and  more,  to  be  coming  to  the  position 
mentafo"a  that  our  belief  in  God  is  fundamental  ;  that  it  is 

God  which 

now  tends      one  ot  those  postulates  ot  the  human  reason  on 

to  prevail. 

which  we  plant  ourselves  in  advance  of  every 
inquiry  after  a  God  ;  that  all  our  a-posteriori  arguments, 
so  far  from  begetting,  only  serve  to  clear  up  and  deepen 
this  necessary  conviction.  It  is  one  of  the  truths  which 
lie  about  us  in  our  infancy,  as  Wordsworth  puts  it  in 
his  Ode  on  Immortality;  which  we  bring  with  us  when 
we  come  from  God,  who  is  our  home  ;  truths  that  wake 
to  perish  never  ; 

"  Which  neither  listlessness  nor  mad  endeavor, 

Nor  man  nor  boy, 
Nor  all  that  is  at  enmity  with  joy, 
Can  utterly  abolish  or  destroy." 

Descartes  seems,  at  times,  to  have  come  very  near  this 
ground.  Mr.  Lewes  quotes  him  as  saying,  "  By  the  word 
idea,  I  understand  all  that  can  be  in  our  thoughts  ;  and  I 
distinguish  three  sorts  of  ideas  :  adventitious, 
like  the  common  idea  of  the  sun  ;  framed  by 


to  anticipate  . 

this.  the  mind,  such  as  that  which  astronomical  rea- 


PANTHEISM.  91 

soning  gives  of  the  sun;  and  innate,  as  the  idea  of 
God,  mind,  body,  a  triangle,  and,  generally,  all  those 
which  represent  true,  immutable,  and  eternal  essences." 
But  his  precise  meaning  in  these  words  is  uncertain,  for 
we  again  find  him  explaining,  "  When  I  said  that  the 
idea  of  God  is  innate  in  us,  I  never  meant  more  than  this 
—  that  nature  has  endowed  us  with  a  faculty  by  which  we 
may  know  God ;  but  I  have  never  either  said  or  thought 
that  such  ideas  had  an  actual  existence,  or  even  that  they 
were  a  species  distinct  from  the  faculty  of  thinking." 
This  language,  therefore,  shows  us  on  what  ground  the 
famous  demonstration  of  a  God  must  be  regarded  as 
standing.  The  God  whose  existence  is  demon- 
strated must  not  be  held  to  be  anything  distinct 
from  that  which  thinks,  and  conceives,  and  rea- 
sons.  The  Cartesian  idea  of  a  most  perfect 
being  is  only  a  form  of  the  thinking  faculty  revealed  in 
consciousness.  It  is  not  a  truth  independent  of  all  expe- 
rience, but  simply  a  shadow  of  the  "  self."  And  therefore 
the  thinker,  who  is  conscious  of  it,  is  still  within  the  circle 
of  his  own  subjectivity.  The  being  he  has  found  is  not 
outward,  and  personally  separate  from  himself;  he  is  in- 
ward, and  constitutes  in  very  deed  the  thinker's  own 
essence  and  modes  of  consciousness. 

If  it  should  be  denied  that  this  pantheistic  conclusion 
follows  from  Descartes'  position,  and  his  theistic  friends 
should  say  "that  he  has  proved  the  being  of  an  objective 
deity,  independent  of  the  human  consciousness,  then  they 
are  confronted  by  his  method  of  proof,  which 

r>  The  Carte- 

connrms  the  argument  against  them.     To  de-  sian  meth- 
duce  the  outward  from  the  inward,  as  the  Car-  the  teu- 


92  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTH. 


tesian  formula  did,  was  doing  violence  to  the 
law  of  mathematics  which  requires  that  the  con- 
clusion should  be  found  in  the  premise.  I  think,  and 
therefore  I  exist.  Now  show  in  consciousness  that  God 
thinks,  and  it  will  be  mathematically  true  that  God  exists. 
Just  here,  as  already  intimated,  comes  the  inevitable  leap 
into  pantheism.  In  order  to  know  absolutely  that  God 
thinks,  as  I  know  that  I  think,  God  and  I  must  have  one 
and  the  same  consciousness.  I  exist,  for  I  am  conscious 
of  thinking;  and  in  order  to  prove  mathematically  that 
God  exists,  I  must  be  likewise  conscious  of  his  thinking. 
This  is  the  position  to  which  an  inexorable  logic  brings 
us.  Man  is  absorbed  into  God.  Our  consciousness  of 
thinking  is  not  ours,  but  God's  ;  and  because  God  thinks, 
God  exists.  Thus  the  existence  '  of  a  certain  something, 
Go'd,  Nature,  Substance,  whatever  we  choose  to  call  it,  is 
demonstrated  on  mathematical  principles  ;  and  beyond 
this  self-conscious  and  absolute  Substance,  there  cannot  be 
proved  to  be  any  reality. 

Is  further  evidence  needed  to  show  that  we  have  fol- 
lowed Cartesianism  out  to  its  logical  ultimate?  That 
evidence  is  at  hand,  in  the  doctrine  of  Descartes  respect- 
ing second  causes.  He  denied  that  any  such  causes  exist. 
This  tenden  "^F'  ^ore^  states  his  views  on  this  point  as  fol- 
sSn-th-r  lows  :  "  Creation  itself  Descartes  attributed  to 
deniai'of'sec-  the  wil1  of  tne  Almighty,  making  even  neces- 
ond  causes.  ^.^  truth  dependent  upon  that  will,  rather  than 
upon  the  nature  of  things."  Therefore  two  and  two  are 
equal  to  four,  and  the  sum  of  the  angles  in  any  triangle  is 
equal  to  two  right  angles  only  because  God  wills  that  it 
should  be  so.  "  More  important  still,  however,"  says  Mo- 


PANTHEISM. 


rell,  "  was  his  doctrine  respecting  the  act  of  creation  itself. 
To  Descartes  the  whole  dependent  world,  both  of  mind 
and  matter,  is  a  vast  mechanism,  carried  on  by  external 
laws,  —  a  mechanism  which  requires  the  act  of  creation  to 
be  ever  reproduced,  in  order  to  keep  it  in  perpetual  and 
harmonious  operation.  According  to  this  view,  there  can 
be  no  direct  action  of  matter  upon  matter,  because  it  is  the 
perpetual  efflux  of  the  « vis  creatrix '  by  which  all  such 
action  is  maintained ;  and,  consequently,  secondary  causes 
can  be  nothing  more  than  modifications  of  the  first  cause. 
In  like  manner,  also,  there  can  be  no  direct  influence  mu- 
tually exerted  upon  each  other  by  mind  and  matter,  for 
the  action  of  both  is  dependent  on  the  continuity  of  the 
creativ^  power,  as  seen  in  the  laws  or  mechanism  of  body 
and  soul.  In  this  affirmation,  that  the  universe  depends 
upon  the  productive  power  of  God,  not  only  for  its  first 
existence,  but  equally  so  for  its  continued  being  and  opera- 
tion, there  are  involved  the  germs  of  the  several  doctrines 
of  pre-established  harmony,  of  occasional  causes,  and, 
finally,  of  pantheism  itself  the  ultimate  point  to  which 
they  all  tend."1  .' 

So  near  had  Descartes  himself  come  to  the 

Spinoza's 

edge  of  the  abyss  into  which  Spinoza  "  pushed  "   lo^ic  fault- 
him.     What  was   there  worth  contending  for, 

O  ' 

between  this  scheme  of  emanation,  making  God  the  au- 
thor of  all  human  actions  even,  and  pantheism  ?  The  dis- 
ciple was  severely  true  to  the  principles  of  his  master.  If 
he  reduced  the  universe  to  a  single  self-conscious  sub- 
stance, it  was  done  in  the  alembic  of  Cartesianisin.  The 
followers  of  Descartes  had  no  just  cause  to  shout  forth 

i  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  (New  York,  1854),  p.  120. 


94  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

their  indignation  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  thus  putting 
the  life  of  the  Spinozists  in  peril.  The  feeble-bodied,  but 
giant-minded,  outcast  from  Judaism  had  been  more  faithful 
than  any  other  to  the  fundamental  theses  of  the  great 
idealist.  Those  Cartesians  who  still  claimed  to  be  on 
Christian  ground  foamed  at  the  charge  of  pantheism  thus 
laid  at  their  own  door.  Nor  did  it  make  them  any  the 
less,  but  only  the  more  wrathful,  to  find  that  the  charge 
could  by  no  means  be  refuted.  We  may  grant,  what  is 
undoubtedly  true,  that  Descartes  did  not  mean  to  teach 
such  a  doctrine.  But  neither  did  the  good  Bishop  Berke- 
ley mean  to  teach  the  scepticism  which  Hume  deduced 
from  his  premises.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  germs  of 
pantheism  were  in  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  and  *needed 
only  the  acute  and  logical  mind  of  Spinoza  to  develop 
them.  Given  the  premise  of  Descartes,  that  all  truth 
begins  in  consciousness ;  then  allow  his  method,  which  is 
that  of  mathematical  demonstration ;  and  with  these  join 
his  limiting  of  causation  to  the  Deity,  and  you  have  all 
that  is  essential  to  Spinozism.  The  premises  of  the  pan- 
theistic system  were  given  to  it  by  Descartes ;  and  from 
these,  as  Coleridge  has  well  said,  "the  deduction  is  a 
The  prem-  chain  of  adamant."  Spinoza  can  be  refuted, 
jJSjBraiaS"  an^  k*s  aPPa^mg  system  be  shown  to  be  a 
tenable.  baseless  fabric,  in  very  few  words.  All  truth 
does  not  begin  in  consciousness  ;  the  necessities  of  thought 
give  us  a  sure  standing-place  outside  of  our  own  conscious 
thinking.  Furthermore,  many  things  which  cannot  be 
mathematically  demonstrated  are  nevertheless  true.  And 
there  are  efficient  causes  in  men,  if  not  in  nature,  which 
can  never  be  merged  into  the  one  great  First  Cause.  We 


PANTHEISM.  95 

need  not  fear  the  might  of  this  self-reliant  Hebrew.  He 
is  vulnerable,  like  the  hero  of  the  Iliad.  However  well 
protected  at  all  other  points,  there  is  one  point  at  which 
he  may-  be  successfully  assailed.  But  spare  his  premise, 
the  exposed  heel  of  this  logical  Achilles,  and,  like  the  vic- 
tim in  the  fable,  you  must  follow  where  he  leads.  Bid- 
ding a  last  farewell  to  all  your  convictions  of  freedom,  of 
independent  personality,  and  of  real  existence  ;  confessing 
yourself  to  be  a  mere  phenomenon,  an  unsubstantial 
shadow  of  the  one  absolute  Substance,  you  must  go  with 
him  through  that  gate  upon  whose  portal  the  dread  line 
of  Dante  should  be  written,  "  All  hope  abandon,  ye  who 
enter  here." 

I  do  not  claim,  in  tracing  pantheism,  as  I  now  have,  to 
the  philosophy  of  Descartes,  to  have  followed  the  exact 
track  of  Spinoza  ;  but  I  am  fully  persuaded,  whatever  may 
have  been  the  precise  nature  of  his  earlier  inquiries,  that 
he  needed  but  to  keep  hold  of  the  Cartesian  clew  while 
striding  forward  to  his  pantheistic  conclusions.  It  is  ne- 
cessary only  that  we  enter  in  through  the  door- 

,~  ,  ,     The  central 

way  ot  our   own   consciousness,   11    we   would  position  of 

Spinoza. 

reach  the  persuasion  that  we  stand  lace  to  tace 
with  the  one  reality  ;  if  we  would  hold,  on  logical  grounds, 
that  our  personality,  yea,  all  personality,  is  merged  in 
that  absolute  whole,  is  indeed  an  integrant  part  of  it,  while 
it,  in  so  far  as  it  is  real,  is  thereby  impersonal.  This 
great  One,  which  is  the  essence  of  all  things,  Spinoza 
calls  Substance,  applying  this  name  to  it  because  it  stands 
under  and  constitutes  the  whole  reality  of  all  those  phe- 
nomena of  mind  and  matter  which  engage  our  attention. 


nny  BRSIT  7 


8 

'J] 


96  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

It  is  upon  this  basis  of  the  one  absolute  Sub- 
Shresu°ifmat  stance,  that  Spinoza  proceeds  to  build  up  his 
dogmatic  system.  To  follow  him  through,  and 
see  how  he  accomplishes  this  undertaking,  would  be  a 
laborious  and  tedious  task.  The  form  of  his  exposition  is 
such  that  it  cannot  be  condensed.  Every  step  in  it  is  a 
vital  part  of  the  whole.  I  must  therefore  be  content,  as 
my  purpose  permits  me  to  be,  with  a  simple  account  of 
the  main  drift  and  features  of  his  work.  Having  seen 
what  his  fundamental  doctrine  is,  it  is  natural  that  we 
should  desire  some  such  brief  sketch  of  its  plan  of  devel- 
opment. I  shall  confine  myself,  in  what  follows,  to  the 
chief  work  of  Spinoza,  which  he  called  "  Ethics ; "  though 
he  has  set  forth  his  doctrine  in  other  treatises,  especially 
in  the  Tractatus  Theologico-Politicus.  This  work  is  a-  plea 
for  the  broadest  toleration  of  private  religious  opinion, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  argues  that  the  civil  power  should 
insist  on  prescribed  forms  of  religious  observance.  Reli- 
gious worship  seems  to  be  regarded  somewhat  in  the  light 
of  military  drill.  It  is  a  kind  of  Papal  system,  with  the  soul 
left  out ;  an  external  order,  conducive  to  social  uniformity, 
and  necessary  to  the  perpetuity  of  the  state.  Forms  of 
worship  should  have  nothing  to  do  with  actual  religious 
beliefs,  and  should  be  enforced  by  the  civil  authority  as  a 
discipline  which  its  own  safety  requires.  A  full  account 
of  the  views  advocated  in  this  treatise  may  be  found  in 
Willis's  Life  of  Spinoza,  pp.  337-352. 

Taking  up,  now,  the  exposition  of  pantheism 

Three  kinds    . 

of  kuowi-      in  the  JLthics,  the  first  thing  to  be  noticed  is, 
that  Spinoza  distinguishes  three  kinds  of  knowl- 
edge, or  more  strictly,  perhaps,  three  methods  of  inquiring 


PANTHEISM.  97 

after  truth.  The  First  kind  of  knowledge  is  that  which  we 
gain  by  the  method  of  hearsay.  And  under  this  are 
included  not  only  history  and  tradition,  but  all  those  im- 
pressions which  we  get  through  the  medium  of  the  senses. 
Knowledge  of  this  sort  is  vain  and  unreal.  However 
much  it  may  have  to  do  with  the  outward  life  of  men,  it  is 
merely  phenomenal,  and  therefore  unworthy  of  the  true 
philosopher.  The  Second  kind  of  knowledge,  Spinoza 
observes,  is  that  which  we  attain  by  applying  the  logical 
understanding  to  outward  appearances,  so  as  to  trace  in 
them  certain  resemblances,  or  classify"  them  under  the  laws 
by  which  they  are  regulated.  This  is  knowledge  in  the 
Baconian  sense,  and  is  to  be  rejected  as  having  no  place 
in  a  system  of  demonstrated  truths.  The  Third  kind  of 
knowledge,  which  alone  Spinoza  regarded  as  deserving  the 
name,  is  that  which  "  arises  when  by  an  effort  of  the  reason 
we  grasp  the  very  substance  of  things  when  we  gaze  upon 
Being  itself."  l  A  more  precise  view  of  Spinoza's  doctrine 
of  cognition  may  perhaps  be  obtained  from  Props.  XXIX. 
to  XLIIL,  inclusive,  Part.  II.  Under  Prop.  XL.,  Scholium 
2,  he  says,  "We  perceive  many  things  and  form  many 
notions :  1st,  from  singulars  altered  to  us  by  our  senses, 
and  .represented  confusedly  and  without  order  to  the  under- 
standing (vide  Coroll.  to  Prop.  XXIX.).  Such  perceptions 
I  am  therefore  accustomed  to  characterize  as  cognition 
from  vague  experience.  2d,  from  signs  ;  for  example,  be- 
cause from  certain  words  which  we  hear  or  read  we  remem- 
ber things,  and  form  certain  ideas  of  these  like  to  those 
by  which  we  imagine  the  things  themselves  (vide  Schol. 
to  Prop.  XVIII.).  Both  of  these  modes  of  contemplating 

1  Morell,  p.  125.     Froude's  Short  Studies  ou  Great  Subjects,  p.  279. 

7 


98  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTII. 

things  I  shall  for  the  future  designate  as  cognition  of  the 
first  kind  —  as  opinion  or  imagination.  3d,  and  lastly, 
inasmuch  as  we  have  common  notions  and  adequate  ideas 
of  the  properties  of  things  (vide  Coroll.  to  Props. 
XXXVIII.  and  XXXIX.  and  Prop.  ^L.),  I  shall  speak  of 
these  under  the  titles  of  reason  and  cognition  of  the  second 
kind.  Besides  these  two  kinds  of  cognition  there  is  a 
third,  as  I  shall  presently  show,  which  I  shall  entitle 
intuitive^  and  which  proceeds  from  the  adequate  idea  of 
the  real  essence  of  some  of  the  attributes  of  God  to  the 
adequate  cognition  of  the  essence  of  things."  Under 
Prop.  XLIIL,  Demonst.,  he  says,  "  The  true  idea  in  us  is 
that  which  is  in  God,  in  so  far  as  God  is  expressed  by  the 
soul  of  man,  and  it  is  adequate."  l  Here  we  see,  in  the 
definition  of  knowledge  which  he  gives,  how  Spinoza  seeks 
at  the  very  outset  to  draw  us  within  his  charmed  circle. 
It  is  true  that  many  have  accepted  this  definition,  or  its 
equivalent,  without  becoming  involved  in  pantheism  ;  but 
they  were  held  back,  and  saved,  by  a  power  which  philoso- 
phy can  never  bring  to  bear. 

That  immediate  cognition  of  the  essence  of 

Some  ac- 

count  of  the   things,  that  is,  of  God,  or  the  one  substance  in 

Htliics* 

consciousness,  is  the  only  true  and  adequate 
knowledge  Spinoza  everywhere  assumes.  This  appears  in 
the  First  of  the  five  parts  into  which  the  Ethics  is  divided, 
though  more  especially  in  some  of  the  subsequent  portions. 
Reversing  the  order  of  parts,  so  far  as  to  make  the  First 
come  in  last  for  notice,  I  will  now  endeavor  to  state,  as 
briefly  as  I  can,  the  topic  of  each  part  and  the  manner  of 
treatment.  In  the  Second  Part  of  the  Ethics,  the  origin 

1  Willis's  translation. 


PANTHEISM.  99 

and  nature  of  Mind  are  considered.     The  human 

.  Subject  of 

soul  is  there  held  to  be,  not  an  independent  the  second 
thing,  but  purely  a  mode  of  the  divine  attribute 
of  thought.  There  are  prefixed  to  the  forty-nine  demon- 
strated propositions,  with  their  corollaries  and  scholia, 
seven  definitions  and  five  axioms.  Reality  (Def.  6)  is 
defined  to  be  the  same  thing  as  perfection.  To  be  is  to  be 
perfect.  The  first  proposition  declares  that  thought  is  an 
attribute  of  God,  and  the  second  that  extension  is  an  attri- 
bute of  God.  Individual  thoughts  express  the  nature  of 
God.  The  soul  itself  is  not  substance  or  being,  but  simply 
a  mode  of  one  of  the  attributes  of  substance.1  Nor  can  we 
know  the  soul  save  through  this  underlying  substance.  It 
is  a  thing  which  must  be  comprehended  in  the  infinite 
idea  of  God.2  If  considered  by  itself,  it  appears  only  as 
a  succession  of  fleeting  phenomena,  Following  this  change- 
ful process,  and  not  penetrating  through  it  so  as  to  gaze  on 
being  itself,  Spinoza  regards  as  the  road  to  self-ignorance. 
The  observer  mistakes  appearances  for  the  reality. 
The  Third  Part  of  the  Ethics  treats  of  the 

Subject  of 

source  and  nature  of  the  Affections.  "  It  will  Part  Thirt. 
doubtless  appear  strange,"  he  says  in  the  Introduction, 
"  that  I  should  set  about  treating  the  vices  and  follies  of 
mankind  in  a  geometrical  way.  Yet  such  is  my  purpose." 
He  begins  here  with  three  definitions,  the  second  of  which 
is  important.  We  act,  he  says,  when  we  are  the  soul  or 
adequate  cause  of  what  takes  place  within  us  or  without 
us  ;  and  we  suffer  when  anything  thus  occurs  of  which  we 
are  only  partly  the  cause.  He  also  lays  down  three  postu- 
lates, the  first  of  which  says  that  the  human  body  may  be 
variously  affected,  so  that  its  power  of  action  shall  be 

i  Part  II.,  Prop.  X.,  Scholium  2.  2  Part  II.,  Prop.  VIII. 


100          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

increased  or  diminished.  Then,  in  the  fifty-nine  propo- 
sitions following,  it  is  attempted  to  show  that  all  the 
pleasurable  emotions,  such  as  hope,  joy,  love,  occur  through 
the  increase  of  that  power  of  action,  and  that  all  the 
disagreeable  emotions,  such  as  despair,  grief,  hatred,  result 
from  the  diminution  of  that  power.1  It  is,  in  each  instance, 
the  flowing  or  ebbing  of  the  one  substance.  There  are 
times  when jill  the  emotions  of  which  the  soul  is  capable 
are  in  such  a  state  of  activity  as  just  to  balance  each  other. 
It  is  the  peace  of  God,  of  which  we  are  conscious,  when- 
ever this  equilibrium  ensues.  Then  any  greater  influx  of 
the  divine  essence  causes  an  overflow,  which  is  some  one 
of  the  specific  forms  of  pleasure ; 2  and  any  withdrawal 
of  that  essence  causes  a  diminution,  which  we  may  include 
under  the  generic  name  of  sorrow.3 

Spinoza  goes  on  next,  in  the  Fourth  Part,  to 
Part  treat  of  Human  Slavery,  or  the  Strength  of  the 

l^ourtli. 

Affections.  We  are  enslaved  just  in  proportion 
to  the  strength  of  the  emotional  element  in  us.  It  is  the 
tendency  of  the  affections  to  take  from  a  man  his  power 
of  self-control,  and  to  compel  him  to  pursue  evil  paths 
even  while  he  sees  and  approves  the  better  course.  To 
labor  for  a  given  end  is  a  species  of  slavery;  for  "a  final 
cause,  as  it  is  called,  is  nothing  but  a  human  appetite  or 
desire  considered  as  the  origin  or  cause  of  anything." 
God  is  not  under  this  bondage  of  the  affections,  since  he  has 
no  final  cause  in  what  he  does.  "  The  cause  why  God  acts 
and  why  he  exists  is  one  and  the  same,  and  as  he  does  not 
exist  for  any  end  or  purpose,  so  does  he  not  act  for  any 
end  or  purpose."  4  Everything,  that  is,  is  slavish  which  is 

i  Prop.  XI.  2  Part  III.,  Prop.  LIT  I. 

3  Part  111.,  Prop.  LV.  4  Part  IV.,  Introduction. 


PANTHEISM.  101 

not  purely  spontaneous.  This  doctrine  is  made  to  rest  on 
a  basis  of  eight  definitions  and  one  axiom,  and  is  built  up 
into  seventy-three  propositions,  with  their  demonstrations, 
corollaries,  and  scholia.  "It  is  impossible,"  we  are  told, 
"  that  man  should  not  be  a  part  of  nature."  l  And  the 
equilibrium  of  nature,  or  the  balance  of  all  the  passions  in 
God,  is  lost  in  their  coming  forth  into  our  consciousness. 
The  rays  of  the  colorless  beam  are  dispersed  and  but 
partially  comprehended.  This  is  the  subordination  of  the 
absolute  substance  to  the  particular  manifestation  ;  and  it 
is  the  slavery  of  the  human  mind. 

In  the  Fifth  Part  the  reverse  of  this  case  is 


considered  —  the  power  of  the  understanding,  I 
or  human  freedom,  when  the  mode  of  the  attribute  em- 
bodies its  essence.  There  is  most  freedom  in  us  when  we 
are  least  conscious  of  the  self,  and  lost  in  beholding  the 
one  substance  which  constitutes  all  that  is  real  in  us.  The 
whole  of  God  is  revealed  in  our  contemplation,  no  ray 
refracted,  and  all  so  blended  as  to  make  one  passionless 
experience.  Perfect  liberty  is  the  perfect  spontaneity  of 
the  infinite  God  or  Nature,  and  its  absolute  necessity  is 
that  which  renders  it  perfect.  Spinoza  declares,  in  this 
portion  of  the  Ethics,  that  "  God  is  without  passions,  and  is 
not  affected  by  any  emotion  of  joy  or  sorrow."2  He  also 
undertakes  to  demonstrate  that  "  no  one  can  hate  God."  3 
Beatitude  is  that  perfect  balance  of  the  passions  in  their 
manifestation,  which  amounts  to  the  absence  of  passion. 
True  love  is  purely  intellectual,  not  emotional  ;  and  "  the 
intellectual  love  of  the  mind  towards  God  is  part  of  the 
infinite  love  wherewith  God  loves  himself."4  "I  say  that 

i  Part  IV.,  Prop.  IV.  2  Part  V.,  Prop.  XVII. 

s  Part  V.,  Prop  XVI  1  1.  *  Part  V.,  Prop.  XXX  VI. 


102  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

a  thing  is  free,"  says  he,  "  which  exists  and  acts  by  the  sole 
necessity  of  its  nature ;  and  I  call  that  constrained  which 
is  determined  to  exist  and  to  act  in  a  certain  definite  way 
by  something  external  to  itself.  Thus  God,  though  exist- 
ing necessarily,  exists  freely,  because  he  exists  by  the 
necessity  of  his  nature  alone.  So  also  God  understands 
himself  and  all  things  freely,  because  it  follows  from  the 
necessity  of  his  nature  alone  that  he  understands  himself 
and  all  things  else.  You  see,  therefore,  that  I  place  free- 
dom not  in  any  free  decree  of  the  will,  but  in  free  neces- 
sity." l  The  explanatory  words  show  that  Spinoza  did  not 
recognize  such  a  thing  as  freedom  either  in  God  or  man, 
save  in  a  way  that  would  apply  to  all  the  outgrowths  of 
nature  equally  well ;  for  these,  quite  as  much  as  he  claims 
in  any  case,  exist  and  act  from  an  inherent  necessity. 

I   will  return   now,   after   this    look   forward 

Subject  of  . 

the  First        through  Spinoza  s  system,  to  what  he  says  more 

directly   concerning   God,   which   occupies    the 

First  Part  of  the  Ethics.     I  do  this,  not  with  the  hope  of 

adding  to  the  imperfect  outline  just  given,  for  my  sketch 

must,  at  the  best,  be  far  from  adequate.     But  it  may  not 

be  out  of  place  to  introduce  here  a  specimen  or  two  of  the 

manner  in  which  this  system  of  pantheism  is  constructed. 

He  begins  with  laying  down  eight  definitions.     The  first 

of  these  says,  "By  a  thin£  which  is  its   own 

Definitions. 

cause,  I  understand  a  thing  the  essence  of 
which  involves  existence,  or  the  nature  of  which  can 
be  considered  only  as  existent."  The  third  in  the  series 
says,  "  By  substance  I  understand  that  which  exists  in 
itself,  and  the  conception  of  which  does  not  require  the 
conception  of  anything  antecedent  to  it."  The  fourth  of 

i  Letter  to  Dr.  Schaller,  Willis,  p.  383. 


PANTHEISM.  103 

them  is,  "  By  attribute  I  understand  that  which  the  mind 
perceives  as  constituting  the  very  essence  of  substance."  l 
The  sixth  of  these  definitions  says,  "  By  God  I  understand 
the  being  absolutely  infinite,  i.  e.,  the  substance  consisting 
of  infinite  attributes,  each  of  which  expresses  an  infinite 
and  eternal  essence."  2 

If  we  are  not  yet  persuaded  that  there  may 

Axioms. 

be  such  a  thing  as  the  geometry  of  metaphysics, 
let  us  follow  Spinoza  a  step  farther.  From  Definitions  he 
proceeds  to  Axioms.  There  are  seven  of  these  prefixed 
to  this  First  Part  of  his  work,  such  as,  "  Everything  which 
is,  is  in  itself  or  in  some  other  thing;"  "That  which  can- 
not be  conceived  through  another  must  be  conceived 
through  itself; "  "  The  knowledge  of  an  effect  depends  on 
the  knowledge  of  its  cause." 2  But  let  us  not  stop  here. 
Let  us  follow  this  geometrical  pantheist  a  little  into  his 
propositions,  demonstrations,  corollaries,  scholia,  and  the 
letters  q.  e.  d.,  appended  here  and  there  ;  thus  we  may  be 
able  to  see  how  it  is  that  everything  in  the  treatise,  from 
beginning  to  end,  seems  nearly  as  rigid  and  concise  as  the 
procedure  in  Euclid.  The  fifth  proposition,  which  is  de- 
cidedly pantheistic,  declares,  "It  is  impossible  that  there 
should  be  two  or  more  substances  of  the  same  nature  or 
attribute."  The  eighth  proposition  I  will  give,  together 
with  the  demonstration,  it  being  one  of  the  simplest,  and 

1  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  distinction  which  Spinoza  makes  between  Attri- 
bute and  Substance,  is  perhaps  what  may  be  called    subjective  rather  than 
objective.    In  a  letter  to  his  friend  Simon  de  Vries  he  refers  to  these  third  and 
fourth  definitions,  and  explains :  "  By  Attribute  I  understand  the  same  thing 
[as  substance],  save  that  Attribute,  in  respect  of  our  understanding,  is  regarded 
as  attaching  a  certain  specific  nature  to  Substance."    Willis,  p.  279. 

2  Lewes,  p.  473.  s  Lewes,  p.  474. 


104         HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

a  good  example  of  Spinoza's  method:  "Prop.  VIII.-  All 
substance  is  necessarily  infinite.  Demonst.  Substance  of 
one  attribute  exists  not  save  as  one  (by  Prop.  V.)  ;  and  to 
A  demon-  exist  belongs  to  its  nature  (Prop.  VI.).  It  will 
stration.  therefore  be  in  its  nature  to  exist  finitely  or  infi- 
nitely. Not  finitely,  however,  for  then  it  would  have  to 
b.e  conceived  as  limited  by  another  substance  of  the  same 
nature  (by  Def.  2),  which  would  also  have  to  exist  neces- 
sarily (by  Prop.  VII.)  ;  in  which  case  there  would  be  two 
substances  of  the  same  attribute,  which  is  absurd  (by 
Prop.  V.).  Substance,  therefore,  exists  infinitely :  q.  e.  d."  L 
I  shall  be  readily  excused,  no  doubt,  for  not 

Perfection 

of  supc-r-       attempting   to  report   Spinoza's   argument  any 

structure. 

farther.  It  seems  a  little  discouraging  to  one 
at  first,  when  he  thinks  of  going  through  a  metaphysical 
treatise  constructed  after  this  fashion.  But  I  can  assure 
any  one  who  proposes  to  make  the  attempt,  that  the  prog- 
ress is  so  steady,  and  the  demonstrations  are  so  clear, 
that  when  once  fairly  started  he  will  find  himself  drawn 
irresistibly  forward.  Let  him  forget  how  utterly  insecure 
the  foundations  are,  and  he  will  feel  an  ever-growing 
wonder  as  he  sees  this  temple  of  pantheism  rising  up, 
throwing  out  its  battlements,  lifting  arch  above  arch,  and 
rearing  aloft  its  towers,  —  every  joint  perfect,  each  stone 
and  each  timber  going  to  its  destined  place,  the  sharpest 
scrutiny  unable  to  detect  anywhere  the  least  break,  or  flaw, 
or  weakness.  The  doctrine  of  One  Substance  is  the  ma- 
terial of  which  the  whole  edifice  is  made.  That 
butes  of  substance  has  two  infinite  attributes,  Thought 
and  Extension.2  Each  of  these  attributes,  fur- 

i  Willis,  p.  418.  a  Ethics,  Part  II.,  Props.  I.  and  II. 


PANTHEISM.  105 

thermore,  has,  while  expressing  the  essence  of  the  One 
Substance,  an  infinite  number  of  modes,  which  modes  make 
the  whole  varying  phenomena  of  what  we  call  finite  mind 
and  matter.1  All  those  phenomena  which  are  viewed  in 
their  subjective  relation  to  consciousness,  are  modes  of  the 
infinite  attribute  of  thought,  and  all  those  which  are  seen 
in  objective  relations,  ordinarily  regarded  as  the  affections 
of  matter,  are  modes  of  the  infinite  attribute  of  extension. 
Spinoza  seems  to  regard  these  attributes  as  mu-  Boarinff  on 
tually  dependent,  so  that  neither  can  be  con-  ?mmo?-nof 
ceived  to  be,  apart  from  the  other  —  an  opinion  l 
which  is  important,  as  implying  that  there  can  be  no 
thought,  and  therefore  no  conscious  immortality,  where 
everything  which  answers  to  our  idea  of  bodily  organiza- 
tion is  wanting.2  This  dualistic  manifestation  of  God 
must  go  forward  in  our  consciousness  in  order  that  he  may 
know  himself  as  still  existent.  And  he  is  all.  Matter  and 
finite  mind,  viewed  by  themselves,  have  not  a  real,  but 
simply  a  phenomenal  existence.  Soul  and  body  are  the 
same  thing ;  and  neither  of  them  is  anything  but  a  tran- 
sient evolution  out  of  the  universal  substance.  The  earth, 
the  heavens,  the  waters,  the  continents,  man,  beast,  fishes, 
the  birds,  the  flowers,  have  no  proper  being ;  they  are  the 
same  great  all-in-all,  —  the  absolute  substance  manifesting 
itself. 

"  All  nature,  he  holds,  is  a  respiration 

Of  the  Spirit  of  God,  who,  in  breathing,  hereafter 

Will  inhale  it  into  his  bosom  again, 

So  that  nothing  but  God  alone  shall  remain."  3 

1  Ethics,  Part  II.,  Props.  VIII.  and  XIII. 

2  See  Froude's  Short  Studies,  &c.,  p.  315. 
8  Longfellow's  Golden  Legend. 


106  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

According  to  Spinoza  theve  is  no  such  thing  as  a  created 
universe.  He  denies  the  possibility  of  creation.1  Cause 
and  effect  are  but  different  aspects  of  the  same  energy, 
natura  naturans  and  natnra  naturata  ;  God,  nature,  the 
absolute,  the  cosmos,  or  whatever  one  may  choose  to  call 
it,  continually  going  out  of  itself  and  returning  into  itself. 
This  process,  corresponding  to  what  Herbert  Spencer  calls 
evolution  and  dissolution,  is  what  we  name  growth  and 
decay,  birth  and  death,  in  our  inadequate  language.  This 
terrible  God,  this  insatiate  Chronos,  devouring  his  children 
as  fast  as  he  begets  them,  has  perfect  freedom,  according 
to  Spinoza.  Yet  here,  as  already  noticed,  words  are  not 
used  in  their  prevailing  sense ;  for  the  freedom  spoken  of 
has  no  reference  to  liberty  of  choice,  but  is  only  the  cease- 
less power  of  activity.  This  all-ingulfing  divinity  cannot 
act  otherwise  than  it  does,2  nor  can  it  ever  pause  in  its 
action.  Its  spontaneity  is  necessary  and  eternal.  We 
have  then  at  last,  as  Spinoza  does  not  shrink  from  admit- 
ting, a  scheme  of  universal  and  invincible  fatal- 
Fatalism. 

ism.  "  Free  will,  he  says,  "  is  a  chimera,  flat- 
tering to  our  pride,  and  in  reality  founded  on  our  igno- 
rance. All  that  I  can  say  to  those  who  believe  that  they 
can,  by  virtue  of  any  free  decision  of  the  soul,  speak  or  be 
silent,  or,  to  use  a  single  word,  act,  is,  that  they  dream  with 
their  eyes  open.  Nothing  is  bad  in  itself.  Good  and  evil 
indicate  nothing  positive  in  things  considered  in  them- 
selves, and  are  nothing  but  modes  of  thinking.  Not  only 
has  every  man  the  right  to  seek  his  good,  his  pleasure,  but 
ho  cannot  do  otherwise.  The  measure  of  each  man's  right 

1  See  Appendix  to  Part  I.  of  the  Ethics. 

2  Ethics,  Part  I.,  Prop.  XXXIII. 


PANTHEISM.  107 

is  his  power.  He  who  does  not  yet  know  reason,  or  who, 
having  not  as  yet  contracted  the  habit  of  virtue,  lives 
according  only  to  the  laws  of  his  appetites,  is  as  much  in 
his  right  as  he  who  regulates  his  life  according  to  the  laws 
of  reasort.  In  other  words,  just  as  the  sage  has  an  abso- 
lute right  to  do  all  that  his  reason  dictates  to  him,  or  to 
live  according  to  the  laws  of  reason,  in  the  same  manner 
has  the  ignorant  man  or  the  madman  a  right  to  every- 
thing that  his  appetite  impels  him  to  take  ;  in  other  words, 
the  right  to  live  according  to  the  laws  of  appetite.  And 
he  is  no  more  obliged  to  live  according  to  the  laws  of  good 
sense  than  a  cat  is  obliged  to  live  under  the  laws  that 
govern  the  nature  of  a  lion.  Hence  we  conclude  that  a 
compact  has  only  a  value  proportioned  to  its  utility. 
Where  the  utility  disappears,  the  compact  too  disappears 
with  it,  and  loses  all  its  authority.  There  is,  then,  folly  in 
pretending  to  bind  a  man  forever  to  his  word,  unless,  at 
least,  a  man  so  contrive  that  the  breach  of  the  compact 
shall  entail  for  him  that  violates  it  more  danger  than 
profit."  No  comment  is  needed  on  these  plain  words.  It 
follows  from  them  inevitably,  nay,  is  earnestly  maintained 
in  them,  that  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  responsibility 
for  moral  action,  and  that  right  and  wrong,  as  commonly 
understood,  are  a  pure  delusion.  Ethical  or  natural  evil 
is  a  notion  which  ignorance  frames  to  itself,  with  no  shadow 
of  actual  foundation  ;  and  man,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  largest 
happiness,  and  attain  the  fullest  development,  should  seek, 
first  of  all,  ta  lose  his  consciousness  of  such  airy  phe- 
nomena, and  be  identified  in  thought  with  the  Absolute 
Substance  which  fills  and  upholds  all  things. 


108          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

The  question  here  arises,  What  shall  be  said 

The  a  priori      . 

philosophy    of  Cartesianism  in  view  of  the   conclusions  of 

not  to  be 

judged  by      Spinoza  ?     Is    it    fallacious  ?     Ought   it   to   be 

bpmozism. 

altogether  eschewed  in  the  search  for  truth  ? 
While  not  taken  rigidly,  but  as  commonly  understood,  it 
certainly  is  not  to  be  avoided,  "even  if  that  were  indeed 
possible.  Many  of  the  first  thinkers  of  the  time  are  essen- 
tially Cartesians,  as  many  have  been  in  every  past  age, 
and  as  will  continue  to  be  the  fact  hereafter.  The  inherent 
peculiarities  of  such  minds  make  them  what  they  are.  If 
they  think,  at  all,  it  must  be  on  the  basis,  and  by  the 
method,  of  Descartes.  This  was  true -of  the  celebrated 
writers  of  the  school  of  Port  Royal ;  more  or  less  true  of 
that  wonderful  genius  and  Christian  writer  Blaise  Pascal ; 
it  was  true  also  of  the  pious  Fenelon,  and  of  Bishop 
Berkeley  —  so  devout  a  worshipper  of  the  true  God,  though 
in  his  theory  of  the  world  so  deluded.  Descartes  himself 
was  a  sincere  believer  in  Christianity.  If  his  works  were 
condemned  as  heretical  by  the  Papal  church,  this  was  not 
because  he  had  denied  the  Lord  that  bought  him,  but  on 
account  of  certain  physical  discoveries,  owing  to  the  cri- 
terion of  truth  which  he  set  up,  and  because  he  had  sub- 
verted the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  as  interwoven  with  her 
scholastic  theology.  The  great  master  of  a-priori  thinking, 
whom  many  leading  minds  even  at  the  present  day  follow, 
was  a  firm  believer  in  the  living  God  of  the  Scriptures  ;  so 
firm,  that  he  seems  to  have  mistaken  his  faith  for  logical 
demonstration.-  While  Spinoza  took  from  him  the  princi- 
Maie-  P^es  °f  pantheism,  Malebranche,  on  the  other 

branche.        nan(3j  beginning  from  the  same  source,  deduced 
a  body  of  Christian  mysticism.     No  doubt  Spinoza  was 


PANTHEISM.  109 

the  more  acute  and  logical  pupil.  It  was  the  ardent  piety 
of  Malebrancbe,  his  strong  hold  upon  the  personal  Jehovah, 
that  saved  him.  "  The  union  of  the  soul  to  God,"  says  hq, 
"  is  the  only  means  by  which  we  acquire  a  knowledge  of 
truth.  Let  my  readers  judge  of  my  opinions  according 
to  the  clear  and  distinct  answers  they  shall  receive  from 
the  Lord  of  all  men.  Let  us  repose  in  this  tenet,  that  God 
is  the  intelligible  world,  or  the  place  of  spirits,  like  as  the 
material  world  is  the  place  of  bodies ;  that  it  is  from  his 
power  they  receive  all  their  modifications  ;  that  it  is  in  his 
wisdom  they  find  all  their  ideas  ;  and  that  it  is  by  his  love 
they  feel  all  their  well-regulated  emotions.  And  since  his 
power,  and  his  wisdom,  and  his  love  are  but  himself,  let  us 
believe,  with  St.  Paul,  that  he  is  not  far  from  each  one  of 
us,  and  that  in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being." 1  No  doubt  the  keen-eyed  Spinoza  would  have 
found  his  own  doctrine  here,  as  easily  as  in  Descartes. 
But  Malebranche  was  not  a  logical  machine,  and  therefore 
not  a  pantheist.  His  language  expresses  his  deep  sense 
of  the  need  of  divine  illumination  in  the  search  for  truth ; 
the  conviction  that  we  see,  falsely  through  the  senses,  the 
imagination,  the  understanding,  the  inclinations,  and  the 
passions  ;  but  always  truly,  when  we  see  all  things  through 
reason  restored  to  its  right  relations  with  God. 
The  world-renowned  Leibnitz  was  a  Gar- 

Lfibnitz. 

tesian  ;  and  he  bent  all  the  energies  of  his  great 
mind  to  refute  the  conclusions  of  Spinoza.     He  did  refute 
them,  in  the  judgment  of  his  friends,  but  not  till  he  had 
added  to  the  philosophy  of  Descartes  certain  very  impor- 
tant principles.     He  restored  to  the  idea  of  a  Supreme 

1  Hallam's  Literature  of  Europe. 


110  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

Being  that  creative  power  for  which  Descartes  had  too 
nearly  substituted  simple  emanation  ;  and  in  his  theory  of 
Monads,  or  independent  forces,  not  only  is  the  doctrine  of 
second  causes  restored,  but  the  later  doctrine  of  intuitions 
or  necessary  truths  is  foreshadowed.  Herein  it  was  that 
he  hinted  at  the  basis  on  which  alone  the  a-priori  philoso- 
The  safe-  Pnv  can  ^e  saved  from  pantheism.  With  him, 
as  with  Malebranche,  faith  in  a  personal  God, 
and  in  his  own  independent  personality,  predominated  over 
any  logical  faith  in  Cartesianism.  Like  many  others,  both 
in  earlier  and  later  times,  they  walked  safely  along  the 
"  high  priori  road "  cast  up  before  them.  But  it  was  not 
in  themselves,  while  they  thus  went  forward,  nor  in  the 
system  they  adopted,  to  direct  their  steps.  That  Great 
Light,  which  is  the  only  true  light  of  philosophy,  illumined 
their  pathway ;  and  the  Hand  on  which  the  universe  de- 
pends upheld  their  goings. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE  GERMAN  SUCCESSION. 

THE  startling  conclusion  which  Spinoza  had 
reached,  and  from  which  he  could  not  be  driven 
by  Cartesianism,  was  followed  by  a  general  revolt  from 
that   philosophy.     Thinkers   gave   up  their  faith  in  con- 
sciousness as  the  basis  of  a  system  of  truth,  and  began  to 
build  more  and  more  on  experience.     The  a-priori  method 
yielded  to  the  a-posteriori.    Deduction  was  exchanged  for 
induction.     Sensuous  observation  took  the  place  of  spirit- 
ual conviction. 

Thus  a  fresh  impulse  was  given  to  the  philos- 
ophy expounded  by  Bacon,  and  which  had  been 
carried  forward  into  the  realm  of  mind  by  Gassendi  and 
Locke.  Bacon  wrote  a  century  earlier  than  Spinoza,  Gas- 
sendi just  before  him,  and  Locke  was  his  contemporary. 
This  school  had  therefore  gained  a  foothold,  and  could 
boast  of  powerful  adherents,  when  the  real  nature  of  Spi- 
nozism  began  to  be  known.  Hence  the  ripened  seed  of 
Descartes'  philosophy,  which  the  astute  Hebrew  had  gath- 
ered, was  not  immediately  sown  broadcast.  It  lay  buried 
in  the  congenial  soil  of  Germany;  destined,  however,  to 
spring  forth  into  a  prodigious  growth,  when  empiricism 
should  have  run  its  course  and  proved  itself,  too,  a  failure. 

111 


112          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

It  does  not  belong  to  the  present  part  of  ray 

This  move-         ,  .... 

ment  to  be  plan  to  trace  this  empirical  movement  in  the 
for  the  world  of  thought ;  a  movement  which  became 

so  powerful  towards  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  which  was  subverted  in  the  eighteenth. 
The  Positivism  of  our  times  may,  I  think,  find  in  this  its 
lineal  predecessor.  Condillac,  Bonnet,  Helvetius,  Saint 
Lambert,  Condorcet,  Baron  d'Holbach,  were  its  high 
priests  in  France.  One  of  its  strongest  early  advocates  in 
England  was  Thomas  Hobbes.  David  Hume  held  the 
same  relation  to  it  as  a  critic  which  Spinoza  held  to  Car- 
tesianism.  Taking  it  upon  its  own  premises,  that  is,  he 
showed  its  logical  ultimate  to  be  universal  scepticism ; 
just  as  Spinoza  had  shown  that  Descartes'  principles  led 
to  pantheism.  This  keen  sighted  Scotchman  was  to  arise, 
and  cut  up  by  the  roots  the  empirical  metaphysics  of 
Locke ;  then  Kant  was  to  introduce,  instead  thereof,  the 
germs  of  a-priori  thinking  again ;  and  then  the  doctrine 
of  Spinoza  was  to  experience  a  resurrection,  and  to  have  a 
development  which  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  speculative 

philosophy.  "The  God  of  Spinoza,  which  the 
ispinoz/sm  seventeenth  century  had  broken  as  an  idol,"  is 

the  remark  of  Saisset,  "becomes  the  God  of 
Lessing,  of  Goethe,  of  Novalis."  It  is  with  this  German 
pantheism, —  only  so  far,  however,  as  it  appears  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  period,  —  that  I  am  now  concerned.  Les- 
sing the  sceptic,  who  deemed  it  less  blessed  to  possess 
truth  than  to  search  for  truth,  was  among  the  earliest  of 
the  Germans  to  awaken  an  interest  in  the  study  of  Spi- 
noza; but  he  belongs  to  the  department  of  criticism  and 
literature,  rather  than  that  of  philosophy.  His  Nathan  the 


PANTHEISM.  113 

Wise  is  perhaps  as  good  a  reproduction  as  we  have  of  the 
spirit  of  Spinozism,  and  I  shall  repeatedly  have  occasion 
to  refer  to  him;  but  the  present  starting-point  is  more 
properly  Kant's  Critique  of  the  Pure  Reason,  from  which 
the  stream  of  pantheistic  thought  flows  steadily  on, 
through  the  writings  of  Fichte  and  Schelling  more  espe- 
cially, till  it  comes  to  an  end  in  the  Absolute  Idea  of 
Hegel.  It  is  with  very  great  diffidence  that  I  enter  this 
path,  along  which  so  many  able  critics  have  been  found 
stumbling.  There  is  a  tradition  that  Hegel,  near  the 
close  of  his  life,  said,  "  Only  one  of  my  followers  has  un-y' 
derstood  me ;  and  he  has  misunderstood  me."  Even  with 
the  best  of  qualifications,  therefore,  I  might  well  shrink 
from  the  attempt  to  represent  German  pantheism  with 
thoroughness.  But  fortunately  my  plan  does  not  require 
this ;  nor  is  it  probable  that  the  numerous  class  which  I 
hope  to  reach  would  be  greatly  aided  by  such  an  effort, 
however  successful  in  itself.  I  shall  undertake  only  so 
much  as  is  requisite  in  order  that  certain  forms  of  unbe- 
lief, more  or  less  popular  at  the  present  day, 
may  be  seen  in  their  historical  connections.  I  here  at- 
do  not  claim  to  be  a  master  of  the  German 
tongue,  nor  to  have  read  the  works  of  the  famous  authors 
just  referred  to,  in  the  original  text ;  but  I  have  taken 
pains  to  verify  any  statements  which  seemed  to  me  to 
require  it  by  recourse  to  that  text,  and  have  used  only 
those  translations  which  have  the  sanction  of  high  au- 
thority. Though  preferring  to  walk  over  the  bridge  rather 
than  swim  the  river,  as  Mr.  Emerson  puts  the  case,  I 
have  not  hesitated  to  plunge  in  and  make  examination, 
where  anything  seemed  insecure.  The  writer  whom  I 
8 


114  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

shall  quote  chiefly,  in  sketching  the  course  of  thinking 
from  Kant  to  Hegel,  is  Heinrich  Moritz  Chalybaeus,  of 
whose  book,  rendered  into  English  by  Alfred  Tulk,1  so 
competent  a  judge  as  Sir  William  Hamilton  says,  that  it 
is  "  a  perspicuous  and  impartial  survey  of  the  various 
modern  systems  of  German  philosophy,  at  once  compre- 
hensive and  compendious."  It  will  be  seen  I  am  confi- 
dent, even  in  the  imperfect  and  fragmentary  sketch  which 
alone  I  can  hope  to  give,  that  there  is,  in  all  a-priori 
thinking,  a  danger  on  the  side  towards  pantheistic  forms 
of  unbelief;  and  my  object  will  be  fully  accomplished  if 
it  is  made  clear  that  the  philosophy  of  consciousness  is 
not  a  sufficient  guide  in  the  search  for  truth,  save  where  it 
is  supplemented  and  upheld  by  a  divine  energy,  but  car- 
ries one  fatally  on  to  emanation,  and  the  confounding  of 
effects  with  their  causes,  with  no  promise  of  a  logical 
resting-place  short  of  the  One  Substance  with  infinite 
attributes  in  which  Spinoza  at  last  rested. 


Leibnitz,  who  was  mainly  a  Cartesian,  may 
LeibSt°of  be  said  to  have. nourished  the  life  of  Descartes' 
movement,  philosophy  in  the  German  mind,  during  the  pe- 
riod of  its  feebleness.  He  was,  notwithstanding 
his  seeming  arrogance  and  impatience  of  contradiction,  in 
many  respects  a  remarkable  thinker.  Nothing  short  of 
the  limitless  universe  of  truth  seemed  an  adequate  field 
for  his  powers,  over  which  his  intellect  swept  on  imperial 
wing.  But  besides  this  largeness  of  range,  he  had,  what 
is  more  to  the  present  point,  the  rare  faculty  of  kindling 

i  Historical   Survey  of  Speculative  Philosophy  from  Kant  to  Hegel  (An- 
dover,  1854). 


PANTHEISM.  115 

enthusiasm  in  other  minds.  This  last  trait  has  no  doubt 
done  much  towards  perpetuating  his  influence ;  for  the 
works  which  he  finished  with  his  own  hand  have  been 
less  valued  than  some  of  those  which  he  stimulated  others 
to  undertake.  It  was  his  mission  to  open  new  doors  of 
knowledge,  to  point  out  with  eagle  eye  the  errors  of  pre- 
vious and  contemporaneous  thought ;  to  make  suggestions 
and  start  hypotheses  which,  in  the  minds  of  the  rising 
class  of  thinkers,  unfolded  gradually  into  systems  of  phi- 
losophy. 

This  influence  was  especially  manifest  in  the 
case  of  John  Christian  Wolf,  who  was  perhaps 
the  leading  thinker  of  Germany  at  the  begin- 
ning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  So  closely  did 
he  adhere  to  the  teachings  of  his  master,  in  the  numerous 
works  which  he  published,  and  which  were  scattered  over 
Europe,  that  it  has  been  said  of  him,  "  He  dried,  cut  up, 
and  sold  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz."  This  criticism 
seems  unduly  severe,  however,  for  there  is  evidence  that 
Wolf  anticipated  some  of  the  views  of  later  and  more 
famous  thinkers  ;  it  is  in  his  writings  that  the  -term  Ra- 
tional Psychology,  used  in  the  sense  of  the  Kantian 
school,  first  occurs.  But  even  granting  that  he  added  no 
new  material  to  the  subject,  he  was  a  master  of  method, 
and  gave  the  discoveries  of  Leibnitz  a  systematic  shape, 
whereby  he  taught  them  many  years,  and  with  no  small 
success,  to  his  countrymen.  It  was  not  an  age  of  great 
intellects.  Frederick  the  Great  had  drawn  around  him  a 
class  of  French  writers,  who  were  spreading  the  worst 
results  of  Sensationalism,  and  thus  a  kind  of  shallow 
eclecticism  had  grown  up  in  the  very  home  of  Leibnitz. 


116          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH.  ' 

But  Wolf,  breasting  this  popular  current,  marshalled  to 
his  aid  what  little  was  left  of  the  indigenous  Teutonic 
spirit,  and  kept  it  ready  for  the  dawning  that  was  to 
come.  He  was,  besides  all  else,  the  instructor  of  Irnman- 
uel  Kant.  He  thus  stands  as  in  some  sort  a  connecting 
link  between  the  philosophical  source  of  pantheism  in  the 
seventeenth  century  and  of  pantheism  in  the  eighteenth 
.and  nineteenth  centuries.  As  there  could  have  been  no 
Spinozism  but  for  the  philosophy  of  Descartes,  so  without 
Immanuel  Kant  there  could  have  been  no  Fichte,  Schel- 
ling,  or  Hegel.  It  is  very  true  that  Kant  did  not  abide  by 
the  Leibnitz-Wolfian  doctrines ;  but  the  whole  influence 
of  Wolf  strengthened  his  natural  bias,  and  saved  from 
pre-occupation  the  field  in  which  he  was  to  sow  afresh  the 
seeds  of  a-priori  speculation.  "  Wolf,"  according  to  Ten- 
neman,  whom  Mr.  Morell  quotes  as  a  thoroughly  compe- 
tent witness,  "  assumed  bare  thinking  as  his  'starting-point, 
overlooked  the  difference  between  the  formal  and  the  ma- 
terial conditions  of  thought,  considered  philosophy  as  the 
science  of  the  possible  in  so  far  as  it  is  possible,  made  the 
principle  of  contradiction  the  highest  principle  of  human 
knowledge,  placed  mere  ideas  and  verbal  definitions  at 
the  very  head  of  all  research,  made  no  difference  between 
rational  and  experimental  knowledge,  and,  though  fol- 
lowing the  geometrical  method,  neglected  to  distinguish 
that  which  is  peculiar  to  mathematics  on  the  one  hand, 
and  philosophy  on  the  other,  both  in  their  form  and  in 
their  matter." d  Here,  now,  as  may  be  readily  seen,  espe- 
cially in  the  primacy  assigned  to  "  bare  thinking,"  was 
something  which  could  not  foil  to  awaken  the  national 

i  History  of  Modern  Philosophy,  p.  152. 


PANTHEISM.  117 

hunger  in  young  Kant's  mind.  Yet  no  sure  basis  of  hope 
was  given  that  the  hunger  thus  awakened  would  be  ap- 
peased, so  large  was  the  intermixture  of  empiricism  all 
along  in  the  development. 

Kant  was  of  Scotch  descent  on  the  father's 
side,  though  so  unmistakably  German  in  his  JfeSPjiew"" 
habits  of  thought.  The  subjective  tendency  in 
him,  however,  did  not  prevent  him  from  holding  for  a 
time  the  dogmatic  position  of  Locke.  He  was  early  in 
life  a  student  of  the  Sensational  philosophy,  and  seems 
never  to  have  rescued  himself  altogether  from  its  power. 
Not  substances,  but  phenomena,  the  sensations  of  the 
mind  itself,  he  held  to  be  the  proper  material  of  our 
knowledge.  It  was  to  this  school  of  English  and  Scotch 
thinkers,  rather  than  to  that  represented  by  Thomas  Reid, 
that  Kant  partly  belonged.  Though  he  seems  at  times  to 
come  so  near  the  position  of  Reid,  in  his  treatment  of  the 
ideas  of  the  reason,  he  never  clearly  reaches  it.  He  con- 
demns, in  the  founder  of  the  intuitional  philosophy,  that 
affirmation  of  objective  truths  which  he  himself  after- 
wards tries  to  make  on  less  solid  ground.  It  was  with 
the  speculations  of  the  school  of  Locke  chiefly  that  Kant 
contented  himself,  before  undertaking  his  critical  philos- 
ophy ;  and  the  impulse  to  this  great  work,  which  removed 
him  so  entirely  from  Locke's  position,  came  also  from  the 
famous  Scotch  critic  Hume.  "I  freely  con- 
fess," he  says,  "that  it  was  David  Hume  who 
first  roused  me  from  my  dogmatic  slumber,  and 
gave  a  different  direction  to  my  investigations 
in  the  field  of  speculative  philosophy." l  By  his  "  dog- 

1  Chalybaeus. 


118          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

matic  slumber"  we  are  to  understand  the  mental  security 
with  which  he  had  gone  forward  in  the  search  for  objective 
truth,  while  bestowing  no  attention  on  the  powers  and 
limitations  of  the  cognitive  faculty  itself.  He  agreed 
with  Locke  that  the  material  of  our  knowledge  is  given 
to  us  in  experience ;  the  question  still  remaining  was, 
whether  our  notions  of  efficiency,  essences,  cause,  and 
especially  of  a  First  Cause,  are  purely  imaginary,  as 
Hume  had  shown  that  they  must  be  on  the  ground  of 
Locke.  Knowledge  can  never  transcend  experience,  was 
the  premise  which  had  been  laid  down.  But  our  experi- 
ence is  limited  to  the  mental  processes  of  which  we  are 
conscious.  Therefore,  is  the  inevitable  conclusion,  we  can 
have  no  knowledge  either  of  cause  or  substance,  or  of  any 
phenomenon  save  as  it  is  a  part  of  our  own  thinking. 
This  surely  followed,  as  Kant  saw  by  the  aid  of  Hume, 
from  the  position  taken  in  the  Essay  on  the  Understand- 
ing. But  had  that  Essay  given  a  full  account  of  man's 
cognitive  powers  ?  If  it  had  not,  and  there  was  a  way 
of  knowing  besides  experience,  the  universal  scepticism 
which  Hume  had  deduced  from  it  might  perhaps  be 
escaped.  Hume  afforded  him  no  light  on  this  new  ques- 
tion. Still,  the  violent  blow  which  had  been  given  to  the 
received  philosophy  "struck  a  spark."  Kant  could  not 
accept  the  dreary  conclusion,  that  subjective  truth  alone  is 
possible  to  human  knowledge.  Fully  persuaded  as  he 
was,  that  we  may  know  objects  external  to  our  own 
thoughts,  he  saw  at  once  the  only  way  in  which  Hume's 
scepticism  could  be  effectually  met.  Thus  for  he  .had  neg- 
lected what  it  became  him  first  of  all  to  do.  The  work 
needing  to  be  done  was  of  the  same  nature  as  that  under- 


PANTHEISM.  119 

taken  by  Locke,  though  with  the  hope  of  a  very  different 
result.  The  faculties  of  the  human  mind  must  be  exam- 
ined, with  a  view  to  showing,  if  possible,  that  man  has  a 
power  of  cognition  by  which  he  may  know  truths  tran- 
scending his  own  experience.  And  since  this  was  the  im- 
portant doctrine  which  Kant  from  the  first  proposed  to 
establish,  but  which  he  failed  to  establish  in  the  Critique 
of  the  Pure  Reason,  we  treat  him  unfairly,  I  think,  in  sup- 
posing that  the  Critique  of  the  Practical  Reason  was  in 
any  sense  an  afterthought.  This  second  Critique  alone 
claims  to  reach  the  end  which  he  had  in  view  from  the 
start ;  and  therefore,  whatever  must  be  said  of  its  com- 
parative merits,  or  even  if  it  must  be  regarded  as  wholly  a 
failure,  justice,  requires  that  it  be  looked  upon  as  an  essen- 
tial part  of  the  design  with  which  Kant  set  out. 
He  begins  his  inquiry  by  questioning  the  posi- 

J      J    J  Critique  of 

turn  or  Locke,  that  we  can  know  only  what  is     the  Pure 

Reason. 
given  us  in  experience ;  and  the  first  great  point 

to  which  that  inquiry  brings  him  is,  that  we  have  a  faculty, 
styled  by  him  the  Pure  Reason,  by  which  wre  may  know 
truths  transcending  experience.  This  faculty  he  proceeds 
to  analyze,  calling  his  analysis  a  Critique.  The  pure  reason 
dwells  in  a  sphere  which  experience  cannot  reach  ;  and  it 
gives,  out  of  that  transcendent  sphere,  certain  ideas,  forms, 
or  regulative  principles,  which  the  understand- 

.      r>  i    ,  .  _,,  Relation  of 

ing  is  forced  to  recognize  in  construing  the  mat-    the  reason 

«  ,  ~  to  the  un- 

ter  of  our  knowledge.     Our  experience  does  not     dorstami- 
indeed   amount    to    knowledge   without   them. 
They  are  "  synthetic  judgments  a-priori;"  that  is,  logical 
forms  joined  to  the  facts   of  experience,  coming  from  a 
region  above  experience,  under  which  forms  those  facts 


120          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

must  be  known  in  order  to  be  true  science.  The  dealing 
of  the  understanding  with  the  mere  matter  of  knowledge 
is  nothing,  without  those  regulative  principles  which  the 
Pure  Reason  gives  to  the  understanding.  Kant's  proof 
of  these  transcendental  elements  in  all  true  knowledge  is 
the  same  as  Reid's  proof  of  the  principles  of  common 
sense,  —  namely,  their  necessity  and  their  universality. 

These  logical  forms  of  the  reason  are,  in  the 
Thmf  forms  wor^  °f  sense,  Space  and  Time.  All  men  are 
son!10  rea  compelled  to  know  every  object  of  sense  under 

both  these  two  forms.  The  understanding  does 
not  merely  apprehend  the  material  given  it  in  sensation, 
and  make  up  secondary  notions  therefrom  by  its  own  un- 
aided action;  but  evermore  joins  with  the  material  of  its 
knowledge  these  two  a-priori  data  of  the  Pure  Reason. 
It  is  as  true  in  the  province  of  reflection  as  in  that  of  sen- 
sation ;  as  true  when  our  minds  analyze  their  experience 
as  of  the  primary  experience  itself,  that  these  transcen- 
dental forms  are  present.  The  reason  is  continually  fur- 
nishing them,  wherever  the  understanding  finds  any  new 
notion.  They  are  synthetic  judgments  a-priori,  without 
which  the  notion  would  be  impossible ;  and  because  they 
are  in  every  case  thus  indispensable  to  knowledge,  even 
in  the  world  of  experience  with  which  the  understanding 
deals,  Kant  calls  them  the  "  categories  of  the  understand- 
ing." There  are  twelve  of  these  logical  forms  of  the 

reason,  three  severally  having  to  do  with  each 
™seoftche°~  of  four  different  judgments  of  the  understand- 
imdc-rstand-  ing  Thus .  wliere  the  understanding  finds 

quantity  in  the  matter  of  our  experience,  the 
pure  reason  supplies  the  logical  form  of  unity,  plurality, 


PANTHEISM.  121 

or  totality;  where  the  understanding  finds  quality,  the 
rational  form  of  reality,  negation,  or  limitation  will  be 
present;  where  the  understanding  finds  relation,  reason 
compels  that  lower  faculty  to  see  what  it  finds  under  the 
form  of  substance,  cause,  or  reciprocity;  and  where  the 
understanding  discovers  modality,  there  is  present  the 
a-priori  form  of  possibility,  existence,  or  necessity.  These 
are  the  categories  of  empirical  knowledge,  all  coming  from 
that  mental  realm  which  is  above  experience,  and  all 
proved  by  the  infallible  test  of  necessity  and  universality. 

But  not  only  are  these  regulative  principles 
thus  furnished  in  all  our  empirical  knowledge.   J^sa0saofthe 
Besides   the   categories    of   the   understanding, 
there  are  what  Kant  calls  the  Ideas  of  the  reason.     The 
existence  of  those  ideas  is  proved  just  as  that  of  the  logi- 
cal forms  was :  all  men  have  them,  and  no  one  can  help 
having   them.     Though  coming  from  the  same  transcen- 
dental'source  as  the  judgments  of  the  understanding,  they 
yet  differ  from  them,  in  that  they  are  not  susceptible  of  a 
synthesis  with  any  matter  of  actual  knowledge.     There  is 
no  possibility  of  applying  them  to  anything  else.     They 
stand  alone,  pure  and  simple,  cognizable  only  as  ideas  in 
their   own   peculiar  sphere,  and  defying  all  attempts  to 
actualize  them  elsewhere.     These  ideas  of  the  reason  are 
three  in  number:   (1.)  that  of  the  Soul,  which 
is  the  basis  of  rational  psychology;  (2.)  that  of  ^ehatthey 
the  World,  which  is  the  basis  of  rational  cos- 
mology ;  (3.)  that  of  God,  which  is  the  basis  of  rational 
theology.     Neither  one  of  these  ideas  has  anything  to  do 
with  objective  reality,  but  they  are  all  framed  by  the  rea- 
son, with  the  consciousness  that  no  object  anywhere  an- 


122          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

swers  to  them.  They  are  purely  transcendental.  They 
remain  the  peculiar  possession  of  the  reason  which  gave 
birth  to  them.  Their  presence  within  us  is  inevitable,  what- 
ever our  experience,  of  which  they  are  independent.  They 
go  with  us,  and  are  prc-supposed  in  all  our  investigations ; 
yet  they  can  never  be  brought  down,  and  made  a  part  of 
the  subject-matter  of  our  inquiries.  They  stand  by  them- 
selves, isolated,  purely  subjective;  they  involve  nothing 

corresponding  to  them  in  the  actual  world.  It 
Sve'nature.0"  ^s  :lli  ideal  world,  an  ideal  soul,  an  ideal  and 

subjective  God  in  which  they  force  us  to  believe. 
Neither  one  of  these  ideas  is  anything  but  a  regulative 
principle  within  the  province  of  the  reason  itself,  and  we 
are  cheated  with  the  emptiest  possible  of  illusions  if  we 
believe  them  to  involve  any  reality  beyond  themselves. 
We  are  compelled  to  entertain  the  idea  of  a  God,  yet  this 
idea  furnishes  no  ground  for  the  belief  that  God  actually 
exists.  While  on  the  one  hand  it  pursues  us,  and  will  not 
let  us  escape,  on  the  other  hand,  it  equally  refuses  to  go 
beyond  us,  or  let  us  pass  behind  it.  It  forevermore  fol- 
lows us  as  an  ideal,  but  we  are  forbidden  to  hope  that  we 
may  ever  behold  it  as  actual  and  real. 

Now.  it  may  well  be  asked,  at  least  so  far  as 

Where  this 

Critique  the  most  precious  beliefs  of  the  human  rax^e  are 
concerned,  whether  the  Critique  of  Kant  is  a  whit 
more  valuable  than  the  Essay  of  Locke.  Had  it  revealed 
a  new  region  of  truth  ?  Yes,  but  that  truth  had  no  objec- 
tive validity;  it  was  purely  subjective  and  ideal.  Did  the 
sage  of  Konigsberg  close  the  door  against  Hume's  scepti- 
cism? Yes,  but  in  doing  so  he  had  opened  a  door  of 
blank  idealism,  from  which,  as  we  shall  see,  the  step  was 


PANTHEISM.  123 

easy  into  pantheism.  The  thinking  world  was  rescued 
from  one  source  of  infidelity  only  to  be  exposed  to 
another.  Once  more  philosophers  turned  from  sensuous 
impressions,  and  began  to  build  on  the  intuitions  of  the 
reason ;  but  they  only  exchanged  Hume  for  Spinoza ;  they 
recoiled  from  the  rock  to  be  drawn  back  into  the  whirl- 
pool. "We  see  distinctly,"  says  Chalybaeus,  "how  near 
Kant  was  to  expressing  himself  in  the  manner  to  which 
Hegel,  at  a  far  later  period,  found  himself  constrained, 
when  on  the  same  path  of  inquiry :  the  absolute  God  is 
the  mere  essence  which  is  thinking  and  thought  of,  because 
it  is  that  in  us  which  thinks;  thinking  is  identical  with 
what  is  thought;  the  absolute  is  the  thinking  process 
itself.  Thus  the  ontological  proof  can  succeed  only  upon 
the  basis  of  an  absolute  idealism,  or  idealistic  pantheism." 
But  it  would  be  wrong  to  infer  that  Kant  in- 

Kant's  plan 

tended  any  such  result  as  that  now  indicated,  broader  than 

this  sphere 

At  least  we  must  presume,  m  simple  justice  to  of  the  rea- 
him,  that  he  saw  beyond  it  another  result  of  a 
positive  nature,  to  be  reached  by  a  different  path  of  in- 
quiry. He  certainly  leaves  the  ground  of  a  solid  theism, 
even  if  he  does  not  tread  on  the  edge  of  pantheism,  when 
he  says  that,  "  for  aught  we  can  tell,  the  unknown  base  of 
mind  and  matter,  despite  their  divergent  phenomena,  may 
be  the  same."  But  he  was  no  pantheist.  It  was  contrary 
to  his  plan,  as  conceived  from  the  first,  to  allow  his  sub- 
jective idealism  to  absorb  the  whole  material  of  philos- 
ophy. As  ChalybaBus  justly  says,  and  as  we  shall  soon 
see,  he  could  not  consent  to  that  line  of  argument  in  ref- 
erence to  the  infinite  God,  when  he  came  to  lay  the  basis 
of  our  ethical  action,  and  of  a  practical  theology.  If,  on 


124          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

the  one  hand,  he  had  shown  the  inadequateness  of  the 
empiricism  of  Locke,  and  on  the  other  hand  had  struck  a 
blow  at  the  ontology  of  Anselm  and  Descartes,  it  did 
not  therefore  follow  that  he  meant  to  subvert  the  great 
truths  of  the  soul,  a  world-system,  and  a  supreme  God. 
They  were  indeed  subverted,  and  could  by  no  means 
be  proved  true,  on  the  ground  of  the  speculative  rea- 
Anotuer  son  >  but  Kant  had  in  view  another  faculty 

of  the  human  mind,  held  back  thus  fir  in  his 
reasoning,  which  he  now  brings  forward  as  a  means  of 
proving  the  objective  validity  of  those  truths.  He  had 
not  imperilled  them  at  all,  as  the  case  stood  to  his  view, 
for  the  Practical  Reason  was  that  on  which  he  had  relied 
from  the  beginning  to  establish  their  absolute  verity.  His 
Critique  of  the  Practical  Reason  was,  as  lias  been  charged, 
the  life-boat  in  which  he  escaped  from  the  wreck  made  by 
his  Critique  of  the  Pure  Reason.  Yet  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  he  had  the  wreck  in  view  from  the  outset,  and 
planned  the  boat  with  reference  to  that  emergency,  regard- 
ing it  himself,  whatever  others  may  think,  as  an  abler  and 
far  more  important  work  than  the  one  published  before  it. 
Having  shown  that  the  realm  of  ontology  cannot  be  reached 
by  way  of  pure  intelligence,  he  undertakes  to  open  a  way 
into  that  sublime  region  upon  an  ethical  basis.  The  moral 
nature  of  man,  in  distinction  from  the  purely  rational,  is 
the  ladder  on  which  he  may  feel  himself  ascending  and 

descending.     The    law    of   our    moral    nature, 

Function  of 

the  Practical  its  Tliou  shalt  and  Thou  shalt  not.  Kant  calls 

Reason. 

"the  categorical  imperative."  This  voice  of 
command  in  conscience  is  just  as  universal,  and  just  as 
necessary,  as  any  idea  of  the  speculative  reason  ;  and  it  is 


PANTHEISM.  125 

something  which,  in  order  to  its  own  integrity,  must  be 
realized  in  experience ;  and  therefore  it  carries  us  back  of 
itself  to  a  self-determining  soul,  and  up  to  a  divine  execu- 
tioner, thus  planting  our  foot  "  upon  the  unconditioned, 
absolute,  or  intelligible  world."  This  categorical  impera- 
tive, which  issues  forth  from  the  practical  reason,  looks 
only  to  its  own  actualization,  regardless  of  such  ends  as 
happiness,  beneficence,  and  reward  ;  and  it  establishes  the 
otherwise  unproved  being  of  a  supreme  God,  since  it  is 
upon  no  less  a  basis  than  this  that  its  autocracy  can  be 
upheld.  Now,  if  Kant  had  simply  meant,  in  this  reasoning, 
to  give  us  the  usual  moral  argument  of  theologians,  all 
would  have  been  well  enough.  Then  he  would 
have  come  clearly  out  upon  the  ground  of  the  satisfuc- 
intuitional  philosophy,  and  might  have  affirmed, 
as  the  truest  of  all  truths,  that  conviction  of  man  which 
he  says  is  "  not  to  be  called  a  true  knowledge  and  cognition, 
but  only  a  belief."  Yet  such  a  step,  evidently,  would  have 
placed  him  in  open  antagonism  with  the  doctrines  of  the 
speculative  reason  ;  and  even  as  the  matter  stood,  such  a 
conflict  was  apparent  to  others,  though  not  to  himself.  If 
his  first  Critique  was  to  stand,  as  its  immense  popularity 
had  already  insured,  then  must  the  intelligible  world  be 
reached,  not  by  the  outward  pathway  of  our  moral  nature, 
but  by  bringing  it  into  the  ideas  of  reason,  and  in  some 
way  identifying  it  with  the  processes  of  rational  thought. 
At  least  this  was  the  method  which  the  leading  minds  of 
Germany,  in  their  efforts  to  know  the  absolute,  were  deter- 
mined to  adopt.  However  conclusive  Kant's  argument 
may  have  seemed  to  himself,  for  them  it  had  an  air  of  con- 
straint, and  was  so  much  weaker  than  what  had  gone 


126          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

before  it  as  to  retain  no  steady  hold  upon  them.  It  gave 
the  thinking  principle  no  outlet,  which  pure  science  could 
recognize  as  adequate.  The  circle  of  knowledge  which  it 
had  begun  could  be  completed  only  by  merging  the  objec- 
tive and  subjective  in  one  pantheistic  result. 

Kant  was  evidently  troubled  by  the  charge 

Critique  of          .,      .  .  ... 

the  jud£  oi  schism  which  was  brought  against  his  philoso- 
phy, and  he  firmly  believed  that  he  could  show 
the  essential  harmony  of  his  system  without  accepting  the 
alternative  of  Spinozism.  He  was  himself  the  first  to 
attempt  a  reconciliation  of  his  ethics  with  his  metaphysics 
—  an  attempt  which  we  need  not  discredit  as  a  mere  after- 
thought, but  may  regard  as  part  of  his  original  plan.  He 
claimed  that  the  real  and  ideal  elements  of  his  philosophy 
could  be  united  on  a  common  basis,  thus  making  one  com- 
plete whole.  That  this  union  of  the  two  principles  might 
take  place  he  sought  to  show  in  a  third  work,  —  his  Critique 
of  the  Judgment,  containing  his  ^Esthetics  and  Doctrine 
of  Final  Causes.  The  object  of  this  work  was  to  fix  the 
central  principle  of  a  Kantian  school  of  philosophy.  I 
can  give  no  account  of  it  here,  except  to  say  that  it  was  a 
kind  of  bridge  whereby  his  realistic  or  empirical  doctrines 
were  brought  over  to  his  idealism,  —  not  to  retain  their  inde- 
pendent life,  but  to  be  overmastered  and  devoured.  A  few 
of  his  disciples  tried,  for  a  short  time,  to  stand  upon  this 
middle  ground,  holding  in  equilibrium  the  two  antagonistic 
Critiques.  But  no  one  was  able  to  keep  the 
not  at-  position  lono;.  The  dualism  of  the  Kantian 

tained. 

philosophy  was  what  struck  men  as  its  most 
obvious  trait.  They  failed  to  see  the  new  foundation, 
and  felt  that  only  another  crisis  had  been  reached  in  -the 


PANTHEISM.  127 

history  of  thinking.  Idealism  and  empiricism,  they  con- 
tended, could  not  be  brought  together  into  an  harmonious 
system,  and  each  at  the  same  time  preserve  its  own  integ- 
rity. The  question  with  them  therefore  was,  which  should 
fall  before  the  other.  And  the  question  was  not  a  very 
hard  one  to  decide.  When  a  meteor  is  revolving  midway 
between  the  sun  and  the  nearest  planet,  we  know  to  which 
body  it  must  ultimately  come.  The  distance  being  the 
same  on  either  hand,  the  attraction  must  be  as  the  mass 
of  matter.  The  little  finger  of  Kant's  idealism,  whatever 
he  thought  of  it,  was,  in  its  impression  on  other  minds, 
thicker  than  the  loins  of  his  empiricism.  As  often  as  they 
met  in  fair  encounter,  the  latter  was  sure  to  go  to  the  wall. 
"The  two  principles,"  says  Chalybaeus,  "were  still  held 
dualistically  together.  We  could,  while  arriving  through 
the  reason  at  absolute  unity,  either  acknowledge  the  one 
idealistic  principle  to  be  the  genuine  root  of  all  knowledge, 
and  abide  subjectively  by  this  alone,  or  we  could  in  turn 
make  empiricism,  and  consequently  a  multitude  of  objective 
beginnings  and  principles,  the  point  of  our  departure."  1 

Whether  I  have  now  succeeded  in  giving  any  Three  dis 
correct  impressions  of  Kant's  system  or  not,  it  is  Scies^n 
at  least  clear  that  three  distinct  schools  of  Kant' 
thought  might  proceed  from  him.  Directly  before  him 
was  the  path  indicated  by  his  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  in 
which  Reinhold  and  Fries  tried  to  go  forward  ;  on  the  one 
hand  was  his  realism,  which  Jacobi  and  Herbart  pursued, 
though  from  opposite  sides,  and  on  the  other  hand  was  his 
idealism,  which  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel  carried  out  to 

1  History  of  Speculative  Philosophy,  p.  57. 


128          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

its  extreme  results.  The  last  of  these  three  paths  will 
chiefly  claim  our  notice,  though  something  should  be*  said 
of  the  other  two. 

Of  those  who  tried  to  hold  the  middle  course, 

Reinhold. 

seeking  a  principle  which  should  mediate  be- 
tween the  real  and  the  ideal,  Carl  Leonhard  Reinhold 
deserves  to  be  first  named.  Chalybaeus  intimates  that 
Fries  was  the  more  earnest  in  advocating  Kant's  centre- 
theory  ;  but  of  the  few  sentences  devoted  to  them  both, 
almost  all  have  reference  to  Reinhold.  Under  his  treatment 
the  ^Esthetics  of  Kant  becomes  a  representation,  oscillating 
between  the  subject  and  the  object,  in  which  their  essential 
unity  is  to  be  found.  This  representation  being  one  of  the 
data  of  consciousness,  he  is  led  by  it  to  speak  of  the  im- 
portance of  an  examination  of  that  faculty.  This  work  he 
never  undertook  himself,  but  it  became  a  fruitful  subject 
under  the  treatment  of  other  thinkers,  especially  in  the 
hands  of  Fichte,  to  whose  views  Reinhold  gradually  in- 
clined." 1 

I  shall  attempt  no  statement  here  of  the  views 

Jacobi. 

of  Herbart,  who  developed  strongly  the  empiri- 
cal side  of  the  Kantian  realism,  and  shall  speak  only  of 
Friedrich  Heinrich  Jacobi,  who,  while  starting  from  the 
same  point  as  Herbart,  leaned  towards  idealism  in  his  think- 
ing. He  was  one  of  the  noblest  men  of  his  time.  We  are 
charmed  by  his  character,  as  it  comes  out  both  in  his  writ- 
ings and  his  daily  life.  Yet  the  tendency  of  his  mind  was 

towards  a  certain  mystical  quietism.     He  pur- 

His  mysti- 
cal ten-          sued  the  image  of  truth,  not  outward  by  way 

dency. 

of  the    understanding  and  senses,  but  inward 

i  Morell,  p.  178. 


PANTHEISM.  129 

till  caught  in  the  subjective  idealism  of  Kant,  where  he 
gave  up  the  chase,  and  asserted  that  our  conviction  of 
reality  is  a  thing  to  be  reverently  accepted,  but  which,  no 
one  should  dare  attempt  to  account  for.  "All  our  knowl- 
edge," he  says,  "  must  rest  ultimately  on  faith,  and  not  on 
reasoning."  His  system  has  been  aptly  termed  a  Faith- 
Philosophy.  Starting  with  the  demands  of  our  moral 
nature,  and  holding,  with  Kant,  that  they  involve  in  each 
instance  an  actual  world,  human  freedom,  and  a  supreme 
God,  he  argued  that  an  objective  result  might  be  similarly 
reached  in  the  sphere  of  pure  knowledge.  "Has  not 
Kant,"  he  asked,  "  adopted  the  matter-of-fact  existence  of 
the  ideas  in  his  practical  philosophy,  and  regarded  them  as 
being  the  ultimate  and  most  certain  point  ?  Does  he  not 
here  content  himself,  and  rightly,  with  letting  the  matter- 
of-fact  existence  of  the  moral  law  (the  so-called  Ar(ru*s 
categorical  imperative)  hold  good  as  the  most  Snt^f  first 
irrefragable  of  all  ?  If  he  did  this  in  the  theory  criti(iue- 
of  the  practice,  how  could  he  presume  to  do  directly  the 
reverse  in  the  theory  of  knowledge  ?  Why  should  that 
which  in  the  former  case  was  irrefragable  count  for  nothing 
in  the  latter  ?  "  *  These  questions  are  certainly  well  put, 
and,  as  addressed  to  Kant  himself,  they  cannot  be  answered. 
But  they  made  almost  no  impression  on  German  thinkers, 
foi»  they  assumed  the  correctness  of  that  side  of  Kant's 
system  which  was  regarded  as  a  mistake  and  an  ex- 
crescence. The  speculative  tendency  of  the  times,  taking 
the  Critique  of  the  Pure  Reason  for  its  gospel,  was  not 
satisfied  with  a  theory  which  made  faith,  or  mere  feeling, 
the  ultimate  basis  of  all  knowledge.  It  demanded  that 

i  ChalybaeuB. 

9 


130        •  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 


The  thinkers  ^  freedom,  a  world,  and  a  God,  be 

brouht   forth   from   their   concealment    in   the 


misty  depths  of  feeling,  to  undergo  scientific 
study.  There  was  no  sanctuary  into  which  the  torch  of 
knowledge  might  not  be  thus  carried  ;  no  veil  on  the 
image  of  truth  which  the  hand  of  inquiry  might  not  dare 
to  lift.  Jacobi  stood  almost  alone  in  asserting  that  the 
three  great  ideas  of  the  reason  are  an  awful  treasure  in 
the  depths  of  the  human  consciousness;  in  refusing  to 
sound  those  depths  by  the  scientific  method  ;  in  his  dread 
of  Spinozism,  to  which  he  foresaw  that  such  an  investiga- 
tion must  lead.  An  extract  from  the  famous  conversation 
of  Jacobi  and  Lessing,  at  their  first  meeting  in  1784,  will 

help  to  make  this  point  clear.  Lessing  had  no 
with  Les-  °  dread  of  the  results  of  idealism,  and  made 
«  haste  to  say,  as  soon  as  he  found  occasion,  "  The 
orthodox  ideas  concerning  God  are  no  longer  mine.  I 
have  no  pleasure  in  them  now.  'Ev  md  -nav,  One  and  All,  I 
know  nothing  but  this."  Jacobi's  reply  is,  "  Then  are  you 
greatly  at  one  with  Spinoza."  To  this  Lessing  rejoins,  "  Did 
I  rank  myself  with  any  one,  it  were  with  none  but  him." 
Whereupon  Jacobi  says,  "  Spinoza  is  well  enough  ;  yet  is 
it  but  a  sorry  kind  of  healing  that  we  find  in  his  name."  1 

This  partial  agreement  with  Spinoza,  which  Jacobi  gave 
at  different  times,  led  his  opponents  to  charge  him  with 
timidity.  They  said  that  he  lacked  the  scientific  spirit,  in 
refusing  to  push  on  to  the  logical  goal  of  his  admissions, 

holding  himself  back  through  fear  of  offending 
othJacobi  tne  orthodox  party.  However  this  may  have 

been,  no   one   questioned   the   goodness  of  his 

i  Willis's  Life,  &c.,  of  Spinoza,  p.  152. 


PANTHEISM.  131 

character,  or  failed  to  be  charmed  by  the  beauty  with 
which  he  expressed  his  deep  and  suggestive  thoughts. 
His  style  was  said  to  be  like  Plato's ;  and  many,  who 
could  not  rest  in  his  intellectual  quietism,  yet  studied  his 
works  with  confessed  profit  and  delight.  Hegel,  whom  no 
dread  of  pantheism  kept  from  working  out  scientifically 
the  contents  of  his  consciousness,  says  of  Jacobi,  "  He  is 
like  a  solitary  thinker,  who,v  in  the  morning  of  his  day, 
found  some  ancient  riddle  hewn  upon  an  eternal  rock. 
He  believes  in  this  riddle,  but  he  strives  in  vain  to  guess 
it.  He  carries  it  about  with  him  the  whole  day,  allures 
weighty  sentiments  from  it,  spreads  .it  out  into 
doctrines  and  images,  which  delight  the  hearer,  Sitlcism. 
and  inspire  him  with  noble  wishes  and  hopes  : 
but  the  interpretation  fails ;  and  in  the  evening  he  lays 
him  down,  with  the  hope  that  some  divine  dream,  or  the 
next  waking,  will  pronounce  to  him  '•the  word''  for  which 
he  longs,  and  on  which  he  has  so  firmly  believed."  ]  This 
beautiful  system  of  faith-philosophy  did  not  start  from 
that  side  of  Kantism  which  was  most  complete,  and  which 
most  powerfully  affected  the  speculative  mind  of  Ger- 
many. The  realism  of  Jacobi,  like  the  seven  goodly  ears 
of  corn  in  Pharaoh's  dream,  sprang  forth  only  to  be  de- 
voured up  by  the  hungry  idealism  of  Fichte,  Schelling, 
and  Hegel. 

Fichte,    wholly   discrediting   that   side    of  Kantism    to 
which    Jacobi    clung,   seized   with    a   powerful 
grasp  the  doctrine  that  the  ideas  of  the  reason 
have  respect  only  to   themselves.      Laying  this  down  as 
the  grand  premise,  from  which  all  true  philosophy  must 

1  Hegel's  Miscellanies,  quoted  by  Morell,  p.  602. 


132  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

be  deduced,  he  did  not  fear  to  push  on  to  the  logical 
result.  The  human  consciousness  —  that  is,  his  own  self- 
conscious  thought-activity  —  is  his  starting-point.  This 
thinking  process  is,  in  the  first  instance,  the  veritable  Ego ; 
nor  does  it  presuppose  any  essence  or  substance,  such  as 
is  commonly  understood  by  the  word  soul ;  and  to  it, 
whether  considered  as  infinite  or  finite,  all  knowl- 
acrtdfythe  e(%e  ig  strictly  limited.  Beyond  the  simple 
abiJ  tiling."  thought-activity,  there  is  nothing  real.  The 
images  and  sensations  which  constitute  its  ma- 
terial, and  which  are  imprisoned  within  the  consciousness, 
cannot  be  traced  to  any  external  origin.  The  whole  pro- 
cess is  purely  subjective;  in  no  sense  from  without,  but 
altogether  a  creation  of  the  Ego  itself.  Fichte  could  not 
believe  that  Kant  was,  in  any  honest  sense,  a  realist;  nor 
was  he  willing  to  give  up  this  opinion  till  Kant  publicly 
protested  against  it.  But  Fichte  went  on.  Of  all  the 
advocates  of  subjective  idealism,  he  was  perhaps  the  most 
thorough-going.  He  did  not,  in  so  many  words, 
The  nou-  deny  the  existence  of  the  world,  as  his  oppo- 
nents charged  him  with  doing,  but  recognized  it 
under  the  designation  of  the  non-Ego.  Yet  he  defines  it 
not  as  any  real  thing,  after  all,  but  as  only  that  conscious- 
ness of  limitation  which  the  Ego  experiences;  and  he 
probably  would  have  never  conceded  even  this  much,  had 
not  the  criticisms  of  Schelling  led  him  to  qualify  some  of 
his  earlier  statements.  But  that  he  is  strictly  an  idealist 
still,  is  clear  from  his  saying,  "  I  can  absolutely  know  noth- 
ing beyond  what  is  present  within  me."  Our  conscious- 
ness is  not  due  to  impressions  made  by  things  outside 
of  it,  but  the  thinking  process  itself  creates  the  objects 


PANTHEISM.  133 

with  which  it  is  concerned.  Having  himself 
posited  the  object  of  this  thought,  a  man  cannot  ^  the^&to' 
say  that  he  holds  a  passive  relation  to  it,  or  that 
the  Ego  of  which  he  is  conscious  is  its  effect ;  for  the  ob- 
ject itself  is  rather  the  effect  of  the  thinking  process.1 
There  are  certain  images  and  sensations,  going  to  make 
the  consciousness  in  any  case,  but  to  seek  an  external  ori- 
gin for  them  is  to  quit  the  track  of  true  science;  just  so 
far  as  they  reach  the  standard  of  scientific  knowledge, 
they  are  a  part  of  the  thinking  process  itself.  "  The  be- 
ing, the  objective  reality,  can  be  for  us  merely  a  being  that 
is  thought ;  a  thought  reality,  thought  by  us,  and  conse- 
quently in  this  sense  self-produced."  Thus  it  is,  in  strict 
fidelity  to  Kant's  first  position,  that  the  theoretical  is 
made  to  lay  hold  of  the  practical  and  wholly  absorb  it. 
Consciousness  is  the  source  of  all  knowledge,  and  this  is 
limited  to  its  own  processes ;  hence  beyond  consciousness 
there  can  be  no  knowledge,  but  pure  guess-work  only.  If 
we  say  that  the  soul  may  know  itself,  yet  that  soul  can- 
not be  a  substance,  but  only  a  thinking  process ;  and  be- 
yond the  play  of  this  self-conscious  thought-activity  there 
is  no  demonstrable  truth. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  any  farther  into  Fichte's  doc- 
trine of  science,  to  see  that  it  places  him  on  the  edge  of  a 
precipice.     He  can  no  longer  be  said  to  occupy 
the  ground  of  the  ordinary  theist ;  the  only  al-  5v 
ternative  before  him  is  atheism  or  pantheism. 
The   outward  world   being   to   him   simply   an 
image  projected  from  himself,  he  could  not  rise  from  it  to 
a  Creator,  as  do  those  who  hold  it  to  be  an  objective  real- 

i  Chalybaeus,  p.  155. 


134          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

ity.  The  thinking  process  is  the  creator,  "being  that 
operation  which  mirrors  itself  in  each  of  its  acts ; "  and 
if  this  be  not  absolute,  there  is  no  absolute.  For  a  time 
Fichte's  utterances  were  thought  to  incline  towards  the 
atheistic  side  of  the  alternative;  so  much  so 
atSm  °f  that  he  was  force(l  to  resign  his  chair  of  philos- 
ophy at  Jena.  To  meet  the  odious  charges  thus 
raised  against  him,  he  gave  a  new  direction  to  his 
thoughts,  though  by  no  means  changing  his  theory  of 
knowledge.  He  affirms  that  the  Ego  itself,  viewed  under 
its  transcendental  aspect,  is  the  Absolute  One.  "This, 
then,  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  our  belief,"  he  says. 
"  The  .living  and  active  moral  order  is  God ;  we  need  no 
other  God,  and  can  comprehend  no  other."  If  we  suppose 
a  personal  God  in  the  usual  way,  we  are  guilty  of  anthro- 
pomorphism;  mere  imitators  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  who 
enthroned  their  own  imperfections  on  Olympus.  "  God  is 
not  a  being  or  existence,"  says  he,  "  any  more  than  man  is ; 
"  but  a  pure  action,  i.  e.,  the  life  and  soul  of  a  transcendent 
world-order."  It  is  at  this  point,  being  hard  pressed  by 
the  speculations  of  Schelling,  that  he  turns 
pantEt*  back  from  the  atheistic  path,  and  makes  choice 
of  pantheism.  '  Every  human  consciousness  be- 
ing an  Ego,  there  is,  consequently,  as  viewed  from  the 
empirical  side,  an  infinite  number  of  these.  Yet  viewed 
from  the  transcendental  side,  they  are  all  but  the  make-up 
of  one  absolute  Ege  —  a  univeVsal  self-consciousness, 
which  is  the  single  divine  reality  amid  all  that  appears. 
"  We,  as  intelligent  essences,  are,  in  respect  to  what  we  are 
in  ourselves,  by  no  means  that  absolute  Being,"  says 
Fichte ;  "  but  we  are  connected  with  it  by  the  innermost 


PANTHEISM.  135 

root  of  our  existence,  since  apart  from  it  we  could  not  be 
or  exist."  This  language  is  not  meant  to  assert,  as  it 
seems  to  do,  that  Fichte  held  the  absolute  to 
be  an  essence  or  substance  in  the  sense  of  Spi-  gjiuoza. 
noza.  The  universal  activity,  the  absolute  think- 
ing process,  is  all  that  he  affirms.  Spinoza's  God  was  a 
substance  in  the  proper  sense,  and  thought  one  of  its  infi- 
nite attributes ;  Fichte's  God  is  that  attribute,  and  he 
denies  that  there  is  any  reality  besides  it.  Spinoza  was 
intoxicated  with  his  absolute-substance  ;  Fichte  loses  him- 
self in  his  absolute  process. 

It  is  our  highest  wisdom,  he  teaches  us,  to  The  true 
know  this  only  God  ;  to  forget  the  Ego  in  so  far  as 
it  is  empirical,  and  behold  it  as  the  transcendental  reality 
filling  all  things.  "  So  long  as  ever  man  yearns  to  be  any- 
thing, God  does  not  come  to  him,  for  no  man  can  become 
God.  So  soon,  however,  as  he  purely  and  radically  anni- 
hilates himself,  God  alone  remains,  and  is  all  in  all.  Man 
cannot  engender  God,  but  he  can  annihilate  himself  as  the 
true  negation,  and  then  he  sinks  or  relapses  into  God.* 
He  has  no  fear  for  the  future,  for  the  absolutely  Blessed  i 
guides  him  towards  it ;  he  has  no  repentance  over  the  past, 
for  in  so  far  as  he  was  not  in  God  he  was  nothing,  and  the 
past  is  now  past,  and  for  the  first  time  since  his  reception 
into  the  Deity  is  he  born  unto  life ;  in  so  far,  however, 
as  he  was  in  God,  is  that  right  and  good  which  he  has 
done."  l 

We  may  say,  then,  that  the  a-priori  philosophy,  reinstated 
and  more  strictly  defined  by  Kant,  had,  in  the  hands  of 
Fichte,  vitalized  the  pantheism  of  Spinoza.  If  the  distinc- 

i  Quoted  by  Chalybaeus,  pp.  182,  183. 


136          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Fichte's  tive  feature  of  Spinozism  was  rest,  that  of 
considered  Fichte's  system  is  activity.  Yet  while  insisting 

on  this  dynamical  life  of  the  absolute,  he  ban- 
ished from  it  all  containing  substance.  This  it  was  the 

aim  of  Schelling;  to  bring;  back.     And  it  is  a 

Schelling. 

striking  comment  on  the  history  of  human 
speculation,  that  'these  two  men,  after  all  who  had  pre- 
ceded them  in  their  school  of  thought,  could  only  leave 
the  great  problem  so  nearly  where  Spinoza  had  left  it  a 
century  and  a  half  before. 

Schelling  begins  by  objecting  to  Fichte,  and 

i?chten  to      ^at  w^k  &reat  f°rce>  tnat  tne  ^)are  process  of 

thinking  is   in   no   proper  sense   of   the   word 

knowledge.     There  must  be  some  real  matter  or  essence 

involved  in  the  process,  which  our  thoughts  can  separate 

from  it  ;  something  around  it,  beneath  it,  or  within  it,  which 

is  to  our  minds  as  really  objective  as  the  thought-process 

is  subjective.     Knowledge  can  begin  only  when 

doctrineVf     our  thinking  has  found  something  which  it  did 

knowledge. 

not  originate.  Thus  far  Schelling  is  on  the  sure 
grounds  of  our  primary  beliefs.  But  he  is  possessed  by 
the  German  madness  for  .the  absolute  one,  the  monistic 
all-in-all.  .The  real  content  of  our  thinking  becomes,  with 
him,  only  an  integrant  portion  of  the  one  noumenon,  which 
mirrors  itself  forth  not  only  in  our  thinking  but  in  all  phe- 
nomena. Not  the  human  ego,  therefore,  even  when  con- 
sidered as  a  substance,'  but  the  absolute  Ego  which 
underlies  and  constitutes  it,  is  the  true  a-priori 
reaches  conception.  At  this  point  all  true  philosophy 

osition  "^ 

of  the  pan-    must  begin.     This  essence  may  be  contemplated 
in  itself,  and  as  apart  from  the  thought-process, 


HowSchel- 

img  reache 

the  position 

of  the 


PANTHEISM.  137 

when  it  is  the  object ;  or  it  may  be  contemplated  as  enter- 
ing and  filling  that  process,  when  it  is  the  subject.  It  may 
therefore  be  properly  named  the  subject-object.  Call  it 
by  what  name  you  please,  —  nature,  God,  noumenon,  abso- 
lute reality,  infinite  one,  —  it  is  that  in  which  our  thinking 
and  the  content  of  our  thought  are  one  and  the  same  thing 
to  consciousness  ;  and  therefore  the  scientific  treatment  of 
it  is  truly  styled  the  Identity-Philosophy.  Pantheists  arc 
fond  of  repeating  Schilling's  celebrated  remark,  that  "all 
difference  is  quantitative."  This  assertion  of-thc  one,  and 
of  the  identity  of  all  things  in  it,  is  a  complete  rendering 
of  the  doctrine  ofJBpinoza.  It  is  pantheism  crowded  into 
a  single  sentence.  The  following  quotation  will  perhaps 
place  before  us  the  Schellingian  doctrine,  so  far  as  de- 
manded by  the  present  inquiry:  "The  multiplicity  of 
determinations  is  not  evoked  in  us  by  the  influence  of 
manifold  external  objects  or  things  in  themselves,  but  it  is 
the  birth  or  product  of  the  potential  fulness  of  our  nature. 
It  is,  really  and  truly,  the  universal  world-nature 
which  here  acts  in  me,  as  in  one  of  her  innumer-  ScrS™ 
able  points,  as  well  as  everywhere  else  ;  and  on 
that  account  we  have  an  immediate  knowledge  of  this 
nature ;  or,  more  correctly  speaking,  it  is  the  universal 
,  nature,  that  here  within  us  knows  something  of  or  perceives 
itself,  —  the  nature  which  has  organized  itself  into  human 
souls,  into  humanity,  and  by 'means  of  these  its  organs 
cognizes  itself.  We  human  beings  are,  as  it  were,  but  the 
innumerable  individual  eyes  through  which  the  infinite 
world-spirit  regards  itself.  We  are  real  or  actual  as  regards 
our  internal  essence  ;  that  which  is  imaginary  and  unsubstan- 


138  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TKUTH. 

tial  in  us  is  the  absolute  personality  with  which  the  indi- 
vidual natters  himself."  l 

It  is  therefore  plain,  if  language  can  make 

Agreement 

with  spi-       anything  plain,  that  Schilling's  Identity  is  the 

Substance,  and  his  subject  and  object  the  thought 
and  extension,  of  Spinoza.  If  he  has  improved  at  all  upon 
his  master,  it  is  by  giving  heed  to  the  words  of  Fichte  ; 
that  is,  by  emphasizing  the  inherent  activity  of  his  world- 
nature.  He  even  speaks  of  the  freedom  of  the  subject- 
object.  But  Spinoza  insisted  that  the  one  substance  is 
free.  Yet  here  is  no  real  liberty  of  will  asserted,  in  the 
former  case  more  than  in  the  latter.  The  freedom  of  God, 
'as  understood  by  both  these  thinkers,  is  simply  that  auto- 
matic power  of  action  which  pertains  to  the  universal  con- 
sciousness. This  essential  activity  has  three  distinct 

manifestations  ;  three  potences  Schelling  calls 
potences.  them.  The  first  of  these  is  the  potence  of 

"  reflection  ;  "  that  is,  the  movement  by  which 
the  infinite  and  absolute  seeks  to  mirror  itself  forth  in  finite 
phenomena.  The  second  is  the  potence  of  "  subsumption  ;  " 
that  is,  the  effort  which  the  absolute  makes  to  return  from 
a  mere  phenomenal,  back  into  its  essential  mode  of  being. 
The  third  is  the  potence  of  "  reason  ;  "  that  is,  the  act  by 
which  the  absolute  recognizes  itself  as  indifferently  present, 
and  forever  one  and  the  same,  in  the  other  two  move- 
ments. 

But  this  is  not  all.     The  first  double  move- 

ment  of  the  absolute,  in  trying  to  realize  itself, 


of°8pirit?      indicates  two  distinct  lines  of  evolution,  which 
it  forever  follows.     Nature  and  spirit  are  these 

i  Chalybaeus,  p.  204. 


PANTHEISM.  139 

lines ;  these  directions  of  the  absolute,  in  its  self-evolution 
through  the  three  potences.  And  in  each  branch  of  this 
twofold  evolution  there  are  three  successive  stages,  culled 
spheres,  in  which  the  threefold  movement  forever  goes 
forward.  I  will  not  attempt  to  give  the  whole  scheme  of 
development,  as  thus  foreshadowed,  but  only  some  faint 
glimpse  of  it  as  it  occurs  in  the  department  of  spirit.1 
Here  the  three  potences  give,  in  the  first  sphere,  which  is 
that  of  knowing,  feeling,  reflection,  and  freedom.  In  the 
second  sphere,  which  is  that  of  action,  they  give  individu- 
ality, the  state,  history.  The  third  sphere  in  the  domain 
of  spirit  is  genius,  and  in  this  the  three  potences  blend, 
constituting  the  noblest  evolution  of  which  the  one  essence 
of  all  things  is  capable.  Within  the  sphere  of  genius  the 
threefold  movement  of  the  absolute,  thus  blended  into  a 
single  state  of  consciousness,  becomes  the  inspiration  of 
finite  intelligence.  To  its  presence  and  action,  being  indeed 
but-another  name  for  itself,  all  fresh  inventions  and  achieve- 
ments which  excite  our  wonder  are  due.  In  religion, 
philosophy,  and  poetry,  also,  those  discoveries  which  carry 
the  horizon  of  the  soul'  abroad,  or  fill  it  anew  with  pure 
and  sublime  thoughts,  are  but  the  three  potences  of  the 
absolute,  blending  in  the  one  movement  which  constitutes 
genius,  and  thereby  carrying  itself  up  nearer  to  that  point 
of  perfect  realization  which  it  never  attains. 

The  difference  between  nature  and  man,  ac- 
cording to  Schelling,  is  one  of  degree  rather 
than  kind,  so  that  the  two  spheres  in  which  the 
world-essence  is  evolved  are  less  unlike  than  we 
might  at  first  think.  The  same  absolute,  as  the  following 

1  The  whole  subject  is  treated  by  Morell,  pp.  433-456. 


140          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

extract  will  show,  fills  them  both.  "With  the  stars  is 
inborn  the  most  exalted  number  and  geometry,  which  they 
execute  in  their  movements  without  any  notion  of  such 
plan.  More  distinctly,  though  still  incomprehensibly  to 
themselves,  appears  the  living  perception  in  animals,  whom 
we  see,  though  wandering  here  and  there  without  delibera- 
tion, to  perform  countless  works  far  nobler  than  tHem- 
selves  ;  the  bird,  intoxicated  with  music,  excelling  itself  in 
tones  that  are  full  of  soul ;  the  small,  art-gifted  creature, 
without  practice  or  instruction,  producing  light  works  of 
architecture  ;  but  guided  by  a  superior  spirit,  which  already 
shines  in  single  flashes  of  intelligence,  but  nowhere  conies 
forth  as  a  full  sun  except  in  man."  l  Man,  as  we  thus  see, 
is  the  true  wonder-worker.  In  him  alone  is  genius ;  in 
him  alone,  that  is,  the  immanent  absolute  so  realizes  itself, 
in  the  blending  of  the  three  potences,  as  to  be  an  inspira- 
tion. Thus  it  is,  as  Schelling  does  not  hesitate  to  say,  that 
we  have  the  Homers  and  Isaiahs,  the  Platos  and  the 
Pauls,  of  history.  Even  the  recognized  God-man  himself, 
who  came  forth  in  heavenly  beauty  among  the  hills  of 
Galilee,  was  but  the  one  world-essence,  rising  into  the  form 
of  genius,  and  moving  amid  bright  visions  which  its  own 

magic  had  cast.  It  was  the  identity  of  the  living 
tin*  \vouid  finite  with  the  living  infinite,  in  his  conscious- 
christian?ty.  ness,  that  made  him  the  founder  of  the  sublimest 

of  all  religions.  That  same  identity  may  be 
traced  wherever  there  is  genius,  though  showing  itself  in 
less  noble  displays.  There  is  no  supra-mundane  Creator ; 
no  God  who  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth.  Accord- 
ing to  Schelling,  says  Mr.  Morell,  "  all  difference  between 

i  Relation  of  the  Plastic  Arts  to  Nature,  quoted  by  Chalybaeus,  p.  251. 


PANTHEISM.  141 

God  and  the  universe  was  entirely  lost;  his  pantheism 
becomes  as  complete  as  that  of  Spinoza ;  and  as  the  abso- 
lute was  evolved  from  its  lowest  forms  to  the  highest,  in 
accordance  with  the  necessary  law  or  rhythm  of  its  being, 
the  whole  world,  material  and  mental,  became  one  enor- 
mous chain  of  necessity,  to  which  no  idea  of  free  creation 
could  by  any  possibility  be  attached."1  The  doctrine  of  a 
supernatural  Creator,  as  Schelling  viewed  the  case,  leaves 
the  creation  a  piece  of  dead  mecbanism.  God  is  in  his 
works;  is  himself  their  essence,  their  life,  their 
soul ;  his  immanence  is  their  mystery,  his  ema-  o^schei-* 
nence  their  glory.  Thus  is  the  mighty  problem  {£|f'8  8y*~ 
of  the  universe  solved,  thought  Schelling.  All 
is  but  the  eternal  ebb  and  flow  of  the  one  absolute  sub- 
stance; and  without  this  no  man,  no  nature,  no  God  is 
possible  or  conceivable. 

It  is  remarkable  how  soon  this  school  of  pantheism 
came  to  an  end.  Fichte  died  only  ten  years  after  Kant ; 
and  Hegel,  who  stands  last  and  highest  in  the 

!  .    ,  ,  ,  Short  con- 

SUCCeSSlOn,  was   but   eight   years   younger  than     tinuanoeof 

Fichte.  Schelling  outlived  them  all,  and  in  his  of  panthe- 
old  age  sought  to  reinstate  his  system,  which 
had  already  fallen  into  decay.  The  rise,  growth,  and 
downfall  of  this  whole  vaunted  system  of  philosophy  cov- 
ered a  period  of  only  about  fifty  years.  Kant,  as  we  saw, 
was  assailed  with  charges  of  dualism,  and  failed  to  rest 
his  speculations  on  any  satisfactory  middle-ground.  Fichte 
also,  feeling  the  inadequacy  of  his  earlier  views,  sought  to 
modify  them  later  in  life.  And  so  of  Schelling.  He  did 
not  seem  to  see  the  revolutionary  tendency  .of  his  thinking 

i  Modern  Philosophy,  p.  448. 


142          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

I 

till  the  mischief  had  been  done.  As  a  logician,  he  was 
faulty.  He  did  not  possess  the  philosophical  temperament 
in  large  measure.  He  clothed  his  speculations  in  the 
language  of  poetry,  rather  than  in  that  of  metaphysics. 
There  are  passages  in  his  works  to  which  the  language  of 

Edgar  A.  Poe,  in  his  Essay  on  the  Material  and 
and  Edgar  Spiritual  Universe,  bears  a  striking  likeness. 

Poe  called  his  essay  a  Prose  Poem;  and  it  is  a 
notable  instance  of  the.  power  of  a  pantheistic  imagination. 
The  Eureka  of  Poe  is  the  subject-object  of  Schelling. 

Nor  did  Schelling  seem  to  be  aware  of  the  de- 
inUlSgeai!ed  structive  tendency  of  his  doctrine,  till  Hegel's 

logic  compelled  him  to  see  it. 

The   labors   of  Hegel   are  a  lesson   forever  to  all  the 
friends  of  truth,  that  the  surest  way  of  overcoming  error 

is  to  let  it  clearly  state  itself.  Tolerance  of 
refutation  opinion  is  an  effective  method  of  opposing  wrong 

of  errorists  .    .  mi       i  •     i 

clear  state-  opinions.  1  he  human  mind  was  made  for  truth ; 
and  it  instinctively  recoils  from  error,  when  that 
error  is  clearly  defined  to  it.  The  complete  overthrow  of 
pantheism  by  its  especial  champion  is  a  signal  instance  of 
this.  He  showed  clearly,  and  in  all  its  practical  bearings, 
what  the  system  was.  This  was  enough.  It  needed  no 
other  refutation.  Bellerophon  carried  on  himself  the  let- 
ter w^hich  condemned  him.  There  was  a  general  recoil  of 
the  better -class  of  minds.  Hegelians  sought  to  show  that 
their  master  '  had  been  misunderstood.  Schelling  was 
drawn  from  his  retirement,  to  prove,  if  possible,  that  his 
doctrine,  at  least  in  its  moral  and  political  bearings,  differed 
from  the  extreme  views  imputed  to  Hegel.  But  Ke  at- 
tempted an  impossible  thing.  The  darkness  had  come  to 


PANTHEISM.  143 

the  light, 'and  been  reproved.  Men  saw  what  it  was,  in 
its  practical  tendencies.  Dreading  the  social  chaos  it  legit- 
imated, they  cast  from  them  its  glittering  bands ;  and  the 
reign  once  broken,  there  was  no  power  by  which  it  could 
be  restored. 

Is  it  not  a  little  discreditable  to  our  Anglo-Saxon  intel- 
lect, that  a  theory  which  the  best  minds  of  Germany  had 
repudiated  should,  more  than  a  generation  after,  have  been 
the  boasted  faith  of  so  many  English  and  Amer- 
ican writers  ?  Is  it  worthy  of  men  claiming  to  4nisimCh 
be  thinkers,  to  make  so  much  of  that  which  has 
been  overthrown  in  the  country  of  its  birth  ?  to  be  like 
that  class  of  paupers  who  come  around  to  the  back  doors 
of  our  houses,  to  gather  into  their  baskets  the  stale  pieces 
of  bread  and  meat  which  the  family  cook  has  been  or- 
dered to  throw  away?  But  the  friends  of  truth,  surely, 
need  have  no  fear  of  an  enemy  which  is  dead  at  the  heart. 
The  claws  of  the  tiger  may  continue  to  feel  after  hi! 
prey,  although  the  fatal  shot  of  the  hunter  has  brought 
him  to  the  ground.  This  movement  of  the  extremities  is 
but  spasmodic,  however.  That  which  has  ceased  to  be 
alive  at  the  core  must  soon  give  up  the  ghost  altogether. 

Hegel  was  a  trained  logician.     He  possessed 

Hegel. 

the  philosophical  temperament  to  an .  eminent 
degree.  He  had  that  cool  fearlessness,  so  remarkable  in 
Spinoza,  which  shrinks  from  no  logical  result  of  the  prem- 
ises laid  down.  It  is  said  that  he  studied  the  works  of 
Spinoza  with  the  utmost*  enthusiasm,  caring  but  little,  in 
comparison,  for  what  had  been  achieved  by  other  modem 
thinkers.  He  saw  in  the  subject-object  of  Schelling  the 
substance  of  Spinoza.  From  this  he  dropped  out  the 


144          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

objective  element,  as  that  whose  existence  was  the  same 
as  its  non-existence,  and  the  subjective  process 
Jute  idea."      which   remained   he  called  the  Absolute   Idea. 
The  nature   of  this   idea  he  undertook   to  ex- 
pound, or  to  show  how  it  unfolds  itself,  from  a  primary 
being  which  is  non-being,  to  an  ultimate  being  which  is 
also  non-being.     This  part  of  his  system  is  the  Hegelian 
logic.     Kant  had  discovered,  in    connection  with  his  cat- 
egories, certain  contradictions  which  he  named 

Use  of  . 

Hunt's  an-     antinomies;  that  is,  it  was  possible,  from  dif- 

tinomies. 

ferent  data,  to  prove  direct  opposites  in  regard 
to  the  same  thing.  But  he  applied  this  law  of  contradic- 
tories only  in  the  sphere  of  natural  philosophy.  Hegel, 
seizing  hold  of  this  Kantian  principle,  claimed  that  it  was 
universally  applicable,  and  made  it  the  comprehensive  law 
of  his. logic.  These  antagonisms  were  only  for  the  under- 
standing, however;  the  reason  beholds  steadily  that  higher 
ifnity  into  which  they  are  constantly  rising.  His  whole 

system  of  logic  is  therefore  a  triplicate  process. 
movSt!  As  described  by  Professor  H.  B.  Smith,  "  There 

is  first  a  statement  expressed  in  the  positive 
form ;  then  there  follows  the  negation  of  the  position ; 
and  then  the  two  contradictory  statements  are  resolved 
into  a  higher  unity.  And  so  the  system  proceeds,  from 
stage  to  stage,  —  positive,  negative,  and  the  union  between 
the  positive  and  negative.  This  union  becomes  in  turn  a 
positive,  a  negative  is  set  over  against  it,  and  this  new 
contradiction  is  resolved  into  another  and  higher  unity."  ! 

But  the  Hegelian  dialectics  are  not  simply  logic,  in  the 
usual  abstract  sense  of  the  word.     A  vital  movement  is 

i  Bibliotbeca  Sacra,  Vol.  II.  p.  274. 


PANTHEISM.  145 

everywhere  intended.  The  recognition  of  the  absolute 
idea,  under  its  threefold  aspect,  constitutes  in  nature  Nat- 
ural philosophy.  Here  we  are  conscious  of  a 
"becoming,"  answering  to  Spinoza's  infinite  at-  JhSowlphy. 
tribute  of  extension.  This  nature-movement, 
throughout  all  its  stages,  conforms  to  the  fixed  logical 
arrangement.  It  illustrates,  like  everything  else,  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Hegelian  trinity.  Not  only  natural  philos- 
ophy as  a  whole,  but  its  divisions,  —  mechanics,  physics, 
and  organized  bodies ;  and  not  only  these,  but  their  sub- 
divisions and  sub-subdivisions,  down  to  the  minutest  rep- 
resentatives of  the  action  of  nature,  conform  to  a  single 
law.  They  exist  only  by  a  constant  struggle  of  affirma- 
tions and  negations,  through  which  the  reason  beholds 
them  rising  all  the  while  into  a  fuller  development  and 
perfect  unity. 

Not  only  in  nature,  but  in  mind  or  spirit  also,  the  He- 
gelian trinity  is  everywhere  present.  Mind,  considered 
absolutely,  was  to  Hegel  an  infinite  process,  not  differing 
from  nature  in  the  final  analysis,  and  corresponding  to 
Spinoza's  infinite  attribute  of  thought,  so  far  as 
an  empty  process  may  be  said  to  correspond  to  o?Bp!ri?.h7 
a  substance.  The  true  philosophy  of  mind  or 
spirit  is  the  exposition  of  the  threefold  movement  in 
consciousness,  by  which  it  is  unfolded.  Our  thought- 
activity  affirms  itself  by  a  positive  movement  answering 
to  Schelling's  potence  of  reflection,  and  also  denies  that 
positive  by  the  potence  of  sub-sumption ;  while  the  rea- 
son has,  in  the  mean  time,  held  the  two  contradictories 
together  in  perfect  union,  under  the  higher  idea  of  the  ab- 
solute spirit.  The  propriety  of  the  distinction  between 
10 


146          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

nature  and  mind  is  a  little  hard  to  see,  looking  from  the 
point  of  Hegel's  subjective  idealism ;  though  it  enables  the 
logician  to  reach  certain  facts  of  history  which  otherwise 
might  seem  to  escape  him.  The  absolute  spirit,  Hegel 
says,  "  is  the  absolute  idea  known  and  understood.  The 
three  stages  of  its  development  are  art,  religion,  philos- 
ophy. Philosophy,  in  the  system  of  Hegel,  is  the  highest 
state  to  which  the  consciousness  of  man  can  be  brought. 
It  is  not  merely  the  union  of  art  and  religion,  but  it  is  this 
union  elevated  into  the  state  of  self-conscious  thought." 1 

Religion,  therefore,  is  simply  one  of  the  factors 
cai  refeeuitOS1  °^  a  true  philosophy ;  one  of  the  potences  of  an 

absolute  thought-process,  which  started  from 
nothing  and  proceeds  to  nothing.  All  the  knowledge  of 
existence  to  which  wre  can  ever  attain  is  this  triplicate 
movement  of  the  Hegelian  dialectic.  Being,  which  is  the 
same  thing  as  non-being,  lies  behind  us  and  before  us. 
From  it  we  came,  and  to  it  we  hasten,  by  a  process  of 
constant  "  becoming,"  the  law  of  which  is  the  universal 
logic,  and  which  constitutes  all  that  we'  distinguisli  as 
God,  man,  and  nature.  God,  for  instance,  is  first  thought 
into  being ;  but  this  thought  is  completed  only  in  the  con- 
tradictory thought  of  non-being,  the  two  opposites  so 
uniting  as  to  give  rise  to  the  pure  idea  of  a  "  becoming." 
This  is  the  only  existence  in  the  case,  and  it  is  the  product 
of  the  dialectic  movement ;  therefore,  exclaims  the  auda- 
cious logician,  "  I  have  created  God." 

The  following  is  related  as  occurring  between  Kant  and 
Hegel.  In  an  argument  one,  day,  Hegel  had  been  con- 
tending that  what  we  call  the  outward  reality  is  never 

i  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  Vol.  II.  p.  285. 


PANTHEISM.  147 

anything  but   the   idea   which  we   have  of  it. 
The  thinking  process  posites  the  object.     Kant     jJaut!  and 
could  not  accept  this,  for  he  believed  in  a  real 
external   world;    and    he   replied   to   Hegel,   with   great 
shrewdness,   "  There   is    considerable    difference   between 
having  a  hundred  dollars  and  thinking  you  have  them." 
But  the  absolute  idealist  was  not  at  all  confused.     Draw- 
ing himself  up  with  proud  disdain,  he  met  his  opponent 
on  common  ground,  and  effectually  silenced  him,  saying, 
"Your  poor  empirical  dollars  are  things  with  which  phi- 
losophy does  not  concern  itself."  1     No  argument,  or  ridi- 
cule, could  move  him  from  his  conclusion,  that  the  only 
real  existence  is  a  self-moved  process  out  of  nothing  into 
nothing. 

Plainly,  then,  no  written  revelation,  or  pos- 

Consequen- 

itive  system  of  worship;  no  political,  social,  or    cesofthe 
domestic  institution,  can  hold  its  own  a  moment 
in  the  sweep  of  this  all-consuming  philosophy.     Polythe- 
ism, monotheism,  Christianity,  the  instant  they  touch  it, 
melt  like  wax  in  the  furnace.     Strauss  brings  the 
story  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  within  its  reach,  and 
straightway  that  beautiful  life  and  sacrifice  are  licked  up 
by  its  tongue  of  fire.     Schleiermacher  exposes 
to   it   the   doctrines   of   theology   built   up   by    tnre1rdcrm'v 
mighty  minds  through  the   slow  ages,  and  in- 
stantly, like   the   servants    of  Nebuchadnezzar,  they  are 
slain.     It  would  be  pleasant  to  feel  sure  that  the  trans- 

1  The  following  passage  (Logic,  Chap.  I.,  C.)  would  go  far  to  sustain  this 
anecdote:  "  Being  and  non-being  are  the  same  thing;  also  it  is  the  same  thing 
whether  I  am  or  am  not,  whether  this  house  is  or  is  not,  whether  these  hun- 
dred dollars  are  in  my  possession  or  are  not." 


148  HALF    TRUTHS    ANrf    THE    TRUTH. 

lator  of  Plato,  and  the  great  Berlin  preacher  who  had 
such  power  to  lift  the  minds  of  men  up  into  heavenly 
realms  of  truth,  escaped  from  the  abyss  of  pantheism  into 
which  he  early  fell.  But  Julius  M tiller  concedes  as  much, 
probably,  as  the  strict  truth  will  bear,  when  he  says, 
"  The  truly  Christian  view  of  sin  and  redemption,  which 
Schleiermacher  adopts  in  his  superstructure,  is  in  direct 
contrast  with  the  foundation  of  his  theory..  Firmly  agree- 
ing with  Schleiermacher  as  to  the  superstructure,  we  are 
obliged  to  reject  the  theoretic  foundation  of  his  doctrine."1 
While  thinking  of  the  system  of  Spinoza  as 

Net  result. 

perfected  by  Hegel,  and  of  the  way  in  which  all 
divine  and  human  institutions,  and  the  realities  of  the 
external  world,  vanish  in  its  embrace,  it  seems  to  us  like 
a  mighty  ocean,  heated  by  the  rays  of  a  vertical  sun ; 
into  which  the  Bible,  the  Church,  the  State,  history, 
nature,  society,  as  if  they  were  but  so  many  tall  and  re- 
splendent frost-vessels,  are  forever  moving  down  to  melt 
out  of  sight,  and  to  blend  with  its  weary,  aimless,  ever 
rolling,  and  unfathomable  waters. 

The  lesson  of  this  brief  and  fragmentary  sur- 

Lesson  of  . 

the  survey     vey  of  Neo-Spmozism  is  plain.     In  the  midst  of 

now  taken.  . 

the  garden  in  which  the  Lord  God  has  placed 

i  The  following  is  Schleiermacher's  eulogy  of  Spinoza,  the  first  sentence  of 
which  I  have  already  quoted :  "  Offer  up  reverently  with  me  a  lock  of  hair  to 
the  manes  of  the  rejected  but  holy  Spinoza.  The  great  Spirit  of  the  universe 
tilled  his  soul;  the  infinite  to  him  was  beginning  and  end;  the  universal  hia 
sole  and  only  love.  Dwelling  in  holy  innocence  and  deep  humility  among 
men,  he  saw  himself  mirrored  iu  the  eternal  world,  and  the  eternal  world  not 
all  unworthily  reflected  back  in  him.  Fuji  of  religion  was  he,  full  of  the  Holy 
Ghost;  and  therefore  it  is  that  he  meets  us  standing  alone  in  his  age,  raised 
above  the  profane  multitude,  master  in  his  art,  but  without  disciples  and  the 
citizen's  rights." 


PANTHEISM.  149 

us,  is  the  tree  of  knowledge.  And  the  latest  voice  of 
history  only  re-echoes  his  own  earliest  word,  that  in  the 
day  we  depart  from  him  and  eat  of  that  tree,  aspiring  to 
know  as  he  knoweth,  we  do  surely  die.  Well  does  Julius 
Miiller  say,  "  There  is  but  One  perfectly  free  from  error 
and  free  from  sin  —  CHRIST.  He  alone  could  lay  claim  to 
the  faith  of  men  in  himself  as  one  who  spoke  the  truth, 
on  the  ground  ofJhis  moral  purity ;  and  he  there- 
fore can  pronounce  judgment  upon  whatever  X^iuiE 
does  not  receive  and  harmonize  with  him,  as  a 
wandering  into  the  paths  of  darkness ;  he  alone  can  ana- 
lyze its  connection  with  a  depraved  bias  of  will.  That 
which  Protagoras  the  sophist  said  of  man  subjectively, 
that  he  is  '  the  measure  of  things,'  is  objectively  true  of 
the  MAN  who  is  our  Lord  and  our  God.  But  as  for  us, 
seeing  we  are  never  free  from  sin,  and  are  therefore  con- 
tinually liable  to  error,  it  is  our  highest  wisdom  not  to 
trust  ourselves,  still  less  to  make  ourselves  the  '  measure 
of  things,'  but  to  rise  above  ourselves  to  Him  who  alone 
is  holy,  and  who,  as  he  is  the  life,  so  is  also  the  truth."  l 

i  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  B.  I.,  Ft.  I.,  Chap.  III. 


LECTURE  IV. 

• 

THE  PANTHEISTIC  CHRISTOLOGY. 

THE  questions  of  philosophy  are  always  closely 
cannot  be       related  to  those  of  religion.     This  is  no  more 

separated 

f[°hmre  true  wnen  the  relation  is  one  of  sympathy  than 
when  it  is  one  of  antagonism ;  no  more  true  of 
pantheism  than  of  positivism.  Even  a  sensuous  philosophy 
opens  anew  the  whole  field  of  religious  thought  by  denying 
its  reality.  The  human  mind,  while  gratifying  its  natural 
thirst  for  the  discovery  of  truth,  either  concerns  itself 
directly  with  the  primary  facts  of  religion,  or  with  theories 
which  involve  the  question  of  their  existence.  Naturalism 
does  not,  any  more  than  transcendentalism,  remove  us 
from  the  realms  of  theism.  The  inevitable  recoil  of  our 
antipathy,  as  surely  as  any  direct  impulse  of  sympathy,  is 
constantly  bringing  us  to  those  realms.  This  necessary 
connection  is  more  apparent,  however,  in  the  case  of  the 
a-priori  philosophy.  The  material  on  which  Fichte,  Schel- 
ling,  and  Hegel  wrought,  is  the  same  as  that  of 
Christian  theology.  The  nature  of  God  and  all 
existence,  and  the  origin  and  tendency  of  things, 
deutaiisni.  were  the  themes  on  which  they  speculated,  in 
common  with  Augustine,  Anselm,  and  Descartes, 
though  in  a  different  spirit.  Pantheism  itself  is  no  less  a 

(150) 


PANTHEISM.  151 

religion  than  a  philosophy;  a  religion  to  reverent  and 
poetical  natures,  which  love  to  look  at  truth  through  the 
haze  of  the  affections  or  prism  of  fancy ;  a  philosophy  to 
purely  inquisitive  minds,  which  study  all  subjects  in  the 
dry  light  of  the  intellect. 

In  one  view  of  the  case,  therefore,  it  might  seem  super- 
fluous to  consider  the  attitude  of  pantheism  towards  the 
doctrines  of  religion.     Why  go  on  beyond  it  to  speak  of 
that  which  lies  within  itself?     But  we  use  the 
word   "religion"   in   two   senses.     There   is    a  J/'Jhe  word 
natural   religion    and    a    revealed    religion ;    a  herr8e!°lon 
subjective    religion    of    the    human    conscious- 
ness, and  an  objective  religion  of  authoritative  precept; 
an  idealistic  religion,  and  an  historical  religion.     It  is  the 
former  of  these  that  constitutes  the  essence  of  *the  panthe- 
istic system  :  what  becomes  of  historical  religion, 
under  the  handling  of  pantheism,  is  a  question 
still  to  be  considered.     The  nature  of  itsinvesti- 
gations  is  such  as  to  make  this,  almost  of  neces- 
sity,  our  first  inquiry  from  its  point  of  view.     If 
it  is  to  have  any  development  at  all,  if  it  -is  not  to  be 
forever  a  fountain  without  an  outlet,  it  must  begin  to  flow 
forth  by  this  channel.     Pantheism  takes  us  through  the 
whole  realm  of  religious  ideas,  and  claims  to  bring  us,  at 
last,  to  a  universal  solvent.     If  that  solvent  is  not  to  lie  in 
our  minds  unused,  but  to  be  applied  to  the  phenomena  of 
human  life  and  society,  the  particular  historical  religion 
which  we  may  happen  to  hold,  will  naturally  be  the  first 
thing  to  come  under  its  power.    If  Hegel  had  lived  in 
China,   and  made    disciples    there    as    he    did    in    Ger- 
many, his  philosophy  would   have  been   applied   to   the 


152  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

writings  of  Confucius  ;  if  he  had  lived  in  Tur- 


thei8mPmay   key,  his  followers  would  have  straightway  ap- 
>e  applied.  philosophy   to   the   religion   of  the 


Koran  ;  but  living,  as  he  did,  where  Christianity  is  the 
historical  religion,  those  who  accepted  his  views  began,  at 
once,  to  use  them  in  accounting  for  the  New  Testament 
records.  Hence  the  rise  of  the  Pantheistic  Christology, 
more  generally  known  under  the  designation  of  the  Tubing- 
en School,  which  has  filled  so  large  a  space  in  the  biblical 
criticism  of  the  last  half  century,  and  to  which  I  propose 
to  devote  the  present  lecture. 

Let  us  recall  here,  so  far  as  the  nature  of  our 
mentfo?  undertaking  requires,  the  central  doctrine  of 
Hegelian-  Hegel's  philosophy.  It  is  that  of  the  progres- 

sive development  of  the  Absolute  Idea,  through 
a  triplicate  and  never-ending  process.  By  the  Absolute 
Idea  I  understand  him  to  mean  the  one  sole  reality,  besides 
which  nothing  either  is  or  can  be  conceived  to  be.  In  its 
logical  results,  though  not  in  its  essence,  it  is  the  same 
thing  as  Spinoza's  Substance.  In  like  manner  it  agrees 
with  the  Subject-Object  of  Schelling,  while  it  seems  hardly 
to  differ,  in  any  respect,  from  Fichte's  World-Ego.  This 

idea  is  not  a  substance  or  entity,  at  least  in  our 
lute  fdea.  conception  of  it,  but  a  process.  The  absolute, 

considered  in  itself,  is  either  something  or  noth- 
ing. As  apprehended  in  consciousness  it  is  a  "  becoming," 
an  endless  evolution  which  had  no  beginning.  In  the  evo- 
lution, or  "becoming,"  there  is  all  the  time  affirmation, 
negation,  and  higher  affirmation.  This  triplicate  move- 
A  triplicate  ment>  forever  carrying  the  absolute  idea  out 
process.  ^Q  more  an(j  more  perfect  manifestations,  con- 


PANTHEISM.  153 

stitutes  the  whole  material  of  our  knowledge.  The 
movement  goes  on,  not  only  in  the  phenomena  of  the 
universe  considered  as  one,  but  in  each  division  and  sub- 
division, down  to  the  least  province  of  discovered  facts. 
It  is  the  method  of  progress  in  all  civilizations,  in  all  his- 
tories, in  all  arts,  in  all  religions.  Taken  in  the  broadest 
sense  it  constitutes  philosophy,  which  is  that  manifestation 
of  the  absolute  idea  in  which  its  self-consciousness  culmi- 
nates. The  doctrine  may  be  clearer  to  us,  perhaps,  if  we 
compare  it,  or  rather  contrast  it,  with  Comte's 

Compared 

threefold  law  of  progress.    According  to  Comte      with 

Comte's 


the  facts  of  observation  are  accounted  for  :  first 
by  hypothesis,  either  theological  or  metaphysi- 
cal ;  then  there  is  a  negation  of  the  hypothesis,  through  a 
destructive  criticism  ;  and  then  there  is  an  advance  from 
hypothesis  to  the  positive  laws  of  phenomena.  It  is  only 
in  this*  threefoldness  of  movement,  however,  that  the  two 
schemes  even  suggest  each  other.  With  Comte  the  pro- 
cess is  but  intellectual  ;  with  Hegel  it  is  real  and  universal. 
Comte  recognizes  only  a  limited  movement  in  time,  while 
Hegel  makes  it  absolutely  eternal.  In  Comte  the  three 
steps  of  the  movement  succeed  each  other  chronologically, 
till  at  last  only  the  third  remains,  which  is  permanent  ;  in 
Hegel  these  steps  are  simultaneous,  and  every  one  valid, 
and  will  continue  to  be  forever.  The  absolute  idea,  even 
when  asserted  most  rudimentally,  is  not  an  hypothesis,  but 
all  the  reality  there  is  for  the  time  being.  The  negation  and 
criticism  of  its  forms  do  not  destroy  it,  as  Comte  makes 
theology  and  metaphysics  fall  before  positivism,  but  are 
ever  resulting  in  its  higher  affirmation. 


154  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

In  civilization,  for  instance,  this  triplicate 
movement  is  always  repeating  itself.  Men  fin3 
.  themselves  living  together  in  one  of  the  primi- 
tive stages  of  society.  This  rudimentary  life  is 
the  absolute  idea  affirming  itself;  the  positive  form  of  the 
"becoming,"  or  evolution  in  consciousness.  But  in  the 
mean  time  humanity  is  outgrowing  this  form  of  civilization, 
and  recoiling  upon  it,  contradicting  and  destroying  it. 
The  effect  of  this  conflict  is  another  positive  manifestation 
of  the  absolute  idea,  in  some  better  form  of  civilization. 
And  the  higher  ground  thus  reached,  instead  of  being  a 
resting-place,  is  always  a  point  of  departure  to  something 
still  higher.  In  this  way  primitive  barbarism  rose  to  hero- 
worship,  hero-worship  to  monarchy,  and  monarchy  to  the 
government  of  society  by  laws  and  constitutions.  This 
unfolding  of  the  absolute  idea  is  history,  and  the  recog- 
nition of  it,  and  interpreting  of  human  progress  by  its 
action,  constitute  the  philosophy  of  history. 

Within  the  province  of  art,  also,  the  Hesrclian 

The  abso- 
lute idea        scheme   reveals   its   essential   nature.     At  first 

men  made  for  themselves  a  few  rude  implements 
and  ornaments.  Jubal  was  the  father  of  such  as  handle 
the  harp  and  organ;  Tubal-cain,  an  instructor  of  every 
artificer  in  brass  and  iron.  This  was  an  actualization  of 
the  absolute  idea  in  art.  But  that  idea,  being  an  eternal 
process,  does  not  stop  at  this  point.  It  goes  beyond,  and 
reacts  upon  what  is  with  destructive  effect.  And  it 
brings  back  with  it,  into  the  place  of  the  forms  it  destroys, 
other  forms  which  more  perfectly  embody  its  own  possi- 
bilities. In  all  departments  of  life,  as  in  art  and  civiliza- 
tion, there  is  forever  a  conservative  party  in  conflict  with 


PANTHEISM.  155 

a   destructive   party,   and   the   result    of   their 

Progress 

struffsmnsr  against  each  other  is  constant  prosr-      and  con- 

1       6         servatism. 

ress  ;  the  further  unfolding,  that  is,  of  the  abso- 
lute idea.     Whatever  bo  the  thesis  on  any  subject  for  the 
time  being,  antithesis  is  steadily  lifting  the  general  con- 
sciousness to  some  higher  thesis. 

Such  being  the  universal  necessity,  it  follows  that  re- 
ligion, like  everything  else,  is  subject  to  its  action.     The 
absolute  idea  was  here  first  actualized,  let  us 
assume,   in   the    form    of   fetich-worship.     But     lute  idea 

in  religion. 

immediately  it  began  to  recoil  upon  this  affirma- 
tion of  itself.  And  the  result  of  the  conflict  was  its  higher 
affirmation  as  polytheism.  Polytheism  is  now  the  thesis, 
and  upon  this,  too,  the  absolute  idea  straightway  reacts  by 
antithesis,  thus  lifting  the  religious  consciousness  of  the 
world  into  the  form  of  monotheism.  In  this  way  monothe- 
ism, as  at  first  imperfectly  held,  became  that  which  the 
absolute  idea  affirmed.  But  by  the  necessity  of  its  devel- 
opment, the  idea  still  reacted  destructively  on  what  it  had 
affirmed,  and  thus  rose  to  the  positive  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity. Christianity,  as  a  temporary  embodiment  of  the 
absolute  idea,  is  now  the  thesis  in  religion.  The 

.  i-i  MI-  •         Christianity 

antithesis,  which  assails  this,  and  destroys  its   one  of  the 

temporary 

formal  expression  in  the  New  Testament  records,   forms  of 

the  absolute 

is  the  Tubingen  school  of  criticism  ;  which  criti-  idea, 
cism,  however,  so  far  from  doing  any  harm  to 
religion  itself,  as  conceived  under  the  absolute  idea,  only 
clears  the  way  for  some  manifestation  of  it  more  noble 
than  the  Christianity  of  the  Bible.     Thus  it  is  that  pan- 
theism, under  the  handling  of  Hegel  and  his  school,  finds 
within   itself   a   place   for   the    Christian   religion.     That 


156  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TliUTH. 

Christianity  is,  however,  only  a  transitory  embodiment  of 
the  absolute  idea,  which  idea  alone  is  permanent,  in  reli- 
gion as  everywhere  else.  This  winds  its  all-crushing  folds 
about  the  historical  Christ,  destroying  him  as  it  gave 
him,  for  the  sake  of  its  own  higher  manifestation.  The 
so-called  historical  Christ  is  a  myth,  and  the  absolute  idea, 
which  wrought  in  the  religious  imagination  of  men  to 
create  that  myth,  and  which  even  now  is  seeking  a  nobler 
incarnation,  is  the  only  and  the  whole,  the  all-one  reality. 

The  followers  of  Hegel  soon  separated  into  a  "  right " 
and  "left;"  and  these  two  parties  straightway  went  to 
war  with  each  other,  and  are  still  at  strife,  evolving  him, 
through  their  disputes,  about  as  interminably  as  his  con- 
tradictories evolve  the  absolute.  His  influence,  even  upon 

Christian  theists,  may  be  easily  accounted  for. 
view^o*  -^-e  ^ie<^  suddenly,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  while  the 
Hegelian-  praises  of  his  philosophy  were  resounding  far 

and  near.  No  young  thinker,  much  less  any 
German  thinker,  wished  to  set  himself  against  so  great  a 
name.  Those  who  held  to  orthodoxy,  and  to  conservative 
views  generally,  yet  professed  Hegelianism,  lest  this  glory 

should  all  pass  over  to  the  revolutionary  party. 

They  sought  to  show  that  Hegel's  philosophy 
did  not  subvert  historical  Christianity,  nor  the  positive 
institutions  of  the  church  and  the  state.  But  the  absurdi- 
ty of  their  effort  was  too  manifest  to  make  much  head- 
way. Though  revived  from  time  to  time,  even  to  the 
present  day,  the  attempt  to  prove  that  Hegelianism  agrees 
with  orthodox  Christianity  has  been  generally  regarded  as 
a  failure.  Julius  Miiller,  a  thoroughly  competent  witness, 
says,  "  No  place  is  to  be  found  in  this  system  for  a  finite 


PANTHEISM.  157 

life  unfolding  itself  progressively,  in  pure  and  undisturbed 
harmony  with  God  and  with  itself,  and  the  attempt  to 
force  such  an  idea  into  it  is  vain.  Hegel,  therefore,  in  his 
logic,  is  fond  of  using  'infinitude'  and  'holiness'  as  cor- 
relatives, and  in  his  lectures  upon  the  Philosophy  of  Reli- 
gion, he  uses  'the  finite'  as  the  correlative  of  'evil,'  with 
the  additional  limitation  that '  evil  is  the  extreme  of  fini- 
tude.'  " l  Those  who  take  the  "  left,"  construing  Hegel's 
system  to  the  overthrow  of  positive  institutions,  may  well 
charge  their  opponents  with  a  lack  of  the  scientific  spirit ; 
with  looking  to  practical  results,  that  is,  rather  than  to  the 
real  nature  of  what  Hegel  taught.  Take  the 

The  "  left." 

self-contradictory  thought-process,  which  is  the 
absolute  idea  eternally  evolving  itself,  and  go  on  fearlessly 
with  it,  say  they,  never  turning  back  to  guard  your  preju- 
dices, and  warning  final  causes,  historical  Christianity,  and 
all  other  obstacles  to  save  themselves  as  they  best  can. 
But  this  party,  even  if  true  to  the  logical  tendencies  of 
the  system,  were  yet  false  to  the  spirit  of  their  master. 
They,  too,  like  their  extreme  opponents,  sought  to  make 
use  of  the  new  philosophy  in  furthering  their  practical 
views  of  social  and  individual  life.  But  was  it  possible 
that  so  great  a  man  as  Hegel  should  wish  to  be  only  a 
destroyer  ?  that  he  should  seek  to  cast  off  all  bands  of 
order  from  men,  and  bring  in  a  social  chaos  everywhere  ? 
This  was  the  question  now  raised  by  some  of 
his  disciples,  to  which  they  could  return  only  a  £.e°""Cen 
negative  answer.  And  hence  arose  a  third  party, 
called  the  "  centre,"  though  left-centre  would  have  been  the 
more  accurate  term,  perhaps.  These  claimed  to  stand 

i  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  Book  II.,  Chap.  IV. 


153          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

midway  between  the  other  two  parties,  and  laid  special 
claim  to  that  scientific  spirit  which  they  alike  had  for- 
saken. And  here  again  we  are  reminded  of  the  Hegelian 
dialectics,  the  same  idea  evolving  itself  anew  through  the 
conflict  of  its  opposites  in  manifestation. 

One  of  the   first   and   most   earnest   of  this 

Strauss. 

"centre"  party  was  David  Friederich  Strauss. 
He,  while  still  a  youth  under  twenty,  had  sat  in  the  vast 
audience  of  learned  men  who  listened  with  delight  and 
wonder  to  the  ripest  utterances  of  Hegel.  None  were 
more  receptive  than  he,  none  more  enthusiastic  in  their 
advocacy  of  the  new  system.  It  was  under  thi#  impulse 
that  he  went  to  Tubingen,  where  Hegel  had  been  educated, 
to  lecture  at  the  university,  and  also  to  be  connected  with 

the  theological  faculty.     As  we  might  expect, 

At  Tubingen. 

he  looked  at  all  subjects  through  the  system  of 
philosophy  which  he  brought  with  him.  He  was  a  pen 
in  Hegel's  hand,  a  tongue  to  the  Hegelian  philosophy. 
But  he  wrote  and  spoke,  for  the  most  part,  on  subjects 
connected  with  the  biblical  teachings.  We  are  at  present 
concerned,  therefore,  to  see  what  the  method  was  by 
which  he  found  a  place  for  Christianity  in  this  pantheistic 
temple. 

His  Life  of  Jesus,  which  has  given  him  so  wide'a  noto- 
riety, was  published  within  five  years  after  the  death  of 

Hegel,  and  when  Strauss  himself  was  but 
o?jeBus!»  twenty-seven  years  old.  It  was  a  work  of 

youthful  enthusiasm,  and  not  free  from  the  faults 
wont  to  mar  such  efforts.  Other  critics,  agreeing  with 
him  in  the  main,  especially  Ferdinand  Christian  Baur, 


PANTHEISM.  159 

have  written  more  ably  and  accurately.  It  is  not  what 
Strauss  did,  so  much  as  the  state  of  religious  thought  at 
the  time  of  his  doing  it,  which  has  made  him,  throughout 
the  world,  the  popular  representative  of  the  school  to 
which  he  belongs.  The  style  of  biblical  criticism  which 
he  boldly  adopted  had  for  a  long  time  been  cautiously 
growing  up.  And  the  destruction  of  the  Evangelical 
record,  in  which  his  criticism  issued,  was  no  shock,  but  an 
omen  of  hope,  to  those  who  would  resolve  everything 
back  into  an  eternal  thought-process  by  which  all  things 
are  evolved. 

Strauss   took    the   ground   that   all   positive   religions, 
Christianity  among  them,  are  but  transient  forms  in  which 
the   absolute  idea,  under  its   religious  designa- 
tion,  manifests   itself.      These   forms,   are   con-    JJjfJj^ ia 
stantly  changing,  even  while  their  names  are    portant" 
retained ;   and  they  can  never  have  any  but  a 
secondary  value.     Our  so-called  historical  Christianity  is 
only  the  flowing  dress  in  which  the  imaginations  of  Chris- 
tians have  clothed  the  religious  idea.      That  idea  itself, 
being  the  absolute  in  one  of  its  phases,  is  the  only  impor- 
tant thing.     And  not  only  this,  but  since  it  is   part  of 
the  eternal  thought-process,  as  such   it  is   the  only  real 
thing  in  Christianity.     The  temporary  embodiment  of  the 
process,  whether  in  the  form  of  narrative,  discourses,  con- 
versations,  dogmatic  treatises,   natural    or   so- 
called    supernatural    events,    is    of   but    little 
account.     It  may  be  altogether  fictitious,  or  a 
nebulous  mass  of  fiction  clustered  about  some 
small  nucleus  of  fact ;  or  4t  may  be  a  string  of  fabulous 
inventions   and   parables,  antedated  afterwards  by  some 


160  IIALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

unscrupulous  editor,  who  would  thus  make  it  seem  to  full 
within  certain  historical  limits.  No  matter  what  that 
embodiment  for  the  time  being  is,  provided  it  is  a  suitable 
form  in  which  the  imagination  of  man  may  express  his 
religious  ideal.  So  long  as  it  admits  of  this,  in  the  case 
of  those  who  accept  it,  its  office  is  fulfilled.  The  question 
of  fact  or  fiction  need  not  be  raised ;  for  it  serves  its  turn 
all  the  same,  be  it  history,  fable,  poetry,  legend-,  myth,  or 
a  mixture  impossible  to  define. 

When  Strauss  was  dismissed  from  the  faculty  of  the- 
ology at  Tubingen  on  account  of  his  heresies,  he  took  the 
attitude  of  surprised  and  injured  innocency.  He  thought 
it  very  hard  that  he  should  be  driven  forth  for  affirming 

that  Christianity  was  of  so  little  account  as 
Christianity,  history,  and  as  such  might  be  either  true  or 

false,  while  he  held  with  all  his  might  to  the 
idea  which  evolved  it.  The  story  of  the  Nazarene  sym- 
bolizes to  us  the  working  of  the  moral  ideal  in  man,  at  a 
certain  stage  of  the  general  progress.  That  ideal,  wearing 
such  dress  as  representative  writers  saw  fit  to  give  it, 
passes  before  us.  It  is  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  it  dies, 
it  rises,  it  ascends  into  heaven.  The  whole  beautiful  pic- 
ture, so  far  as  it  has  any  value  or  significancy,  is  but  a 
movement  in  the  human  consciousness.  The  scene  is  not 

objective,  but  purely  subjective ;  not  the  won- 
prodnecd?]!?  dcr-working  of  one  who  brings  help  down  to 

so-called  rec-  ug    frQm   above?  but    th(J    raany-hued    robes  of  an 

ideal  Christ  which  humanity  thinks  into  being. 
If  we  would  know  how  the  Evangelical  record  grew  up, 
Strauss  would  say,  let  us  consider  how  the  Iliad,  Paradise 
Lost,  and  Hamlet  were  produced.  The  only  difference  is 


PANTHEISM.  161 

that  these  are  the  works  of  individuals,  thinking  partly  in 
secular  channels,  while  that  may  be  regarded  as  the  Work 
of  a  whole  people,  under  the  lead  of  the  religious  imagina- 
tion. Humanity  is  always  in  a  state  of  progressive  think- 
ing, on  religious  as  on  other  subjects.  This  is  the  grand 
truth,  and  all  the  truth.  Man's  religious  thinking  is  not 
to  be  put  under  restraint.  It  may  array  itself  in  such 
garments  'as  it  likes;  may  appropriate  history,  or  put  its 
own'  inventions  into  the  form  of  history  ;  may  seize  upon 
any  marvellous  tales  floating  about  in  tradition  ;  may 
make  use  of  the  actual,  the  possible,  and  the  impossible, 
in  giving  "a  local  habitation  and  a  name"  to  its  "airy 
nothings"  which  are  everything. 

From  this  theory  Strauss  passes,  by  a  nat-      criticism 
ural  inference,  to  his   We  of  Jesus.     All   the 


temporary  forms  of  religion  are  legitimate  game 
for  the  critic,  —  who  loves  to  discern  between  the  his- 
torical and  the  poetical  in  literature,  and  who  seems  to 
think  it  but  fair  that  he,  provided  he  holds  firmly  to  the 
absolute  idea  in  religion,  should  be  allowed  to  amuse  him- 
self with  trying  to  destroy  the  Christian  religion.  It  is 
not  at  all  surprising  that  such  a  target  should  have  been 
chosen  by  the  Hegelian,  on  which  to*'  prove  his  marksman- 
ship. The  paths  of  religion  and  philosophy,  where  not 
co-incident,  are  near  each  other.  Neither  of  them  can  be 
pursued  very  far  by  itself.  This  is  shown  in  the  case  of 
Strauss.  There  was  but  a  step  between  his  lighted  torch 
and  the  Christian  records.  And  having  been  bred  up  in  a 
philosophy  which  assigned  a  lower  seat  than  its  own  to 
every  form  of  religion,  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that  he  was 
at  all  sacrilegious  or  irreverent,  though  somewhat  re- 
11 


162          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

gardless  of  prevailing  prejudices,  in  brushing  aside  the 
whole  drapery  of  an  historical  Gospel.  So  much  of  the 
Evangelical  record  as  had  ceased  to  express  the  scientific 
thinking  of  the  age  on  religious  subjects,  had  become  an 
obstacle  to  the  further  progress  of  religion.  Its  reign  was 
broken.  It  was  a  discrowned  and  lifeless  body.  And  the 
still  more  glorious  manifestation  of  the  absolute  idea,  re- 
quired that  it  should  be  hidden  away  as  soon  as  possible. 
Evidence  ^ut  wnat  *s  ^e  eyidence,  sonie  may  ask,  that 

waas  Satrpan-  *  ^ave  state^  tne  real  spirit  of  the  Tubingen 
theist.  criticism  ?  Such  evidence  abounds.  A  little  of 
it  I  wrill  now  proceed  to  give.  Strauss  quotes  the  remark 
of  Schelling,  that  "  the  incarnation  of  God  is  an  incarnation 
from  eternity ; "  and  he  says  that  Schelling  "  understood, 
under  the  incarnate  Son  of  God,  the  finite  itself  in  the  form 
of  the  human  consciousness."1  This  is  his  own  doctrine. 
The  God-man  is  the  absolute  idea  coming  to  self-conscious- 
ness in  man's  religious  thinking.  This  thought-process  in 
humanity  is  the  eternal  Son,  the  Word,  that  by  which  all 
things  are  made,  and  in  which  God  loves  the  world.  "  The 
recognition  of  God  as  a  spirit  implies,  that  God  does  not 
remain  as  a  fixed  and  immutable  infinite,  encompassing 
the  finite ;  but  enters  into  it,  produces  the  finite,  nature, 
and  the  human  mind,  merely  as  a  limited  manifestation  of 
himself,  from  which  he  eternally  returns  into  unity."2  It  is 
in  the  race  of  men,  therefore,  that  the  incarna- 
the  incarna-  tion  of  God  takes  place.  The'  Gospels  are  a 

tion. 

picture  of  what  is  forever  going  forward  in  our 
religious  consciousness.    Jesus  is  a  symbolical,  ideal  char- 

i  Life  of  Jesus,  Evans'  stranslation  (N.  Y.,  1856),  Vol.  II,,  §  150.       2  Ibid. 


PANTHEISM.  163 

acter,  imaging  to  us  the  workings  of  the  hnmam  mind ;  all 
springs   from   its    depths  and   divine  impulses. 

The  origin 

"  That  history  is  a  beautiful  poem  of  the  human     of  the 

Gospels. 

race,  —  a  poem  in  which  are  embodied  all  the 
wants  of  our  religious  instinct.  The  history  in  the  Gos- 
pels is  in  fact  the  history  of  human  nature  conceived  ide- 
ally, and  exhibits  to  us  in  the  life  of  an  individual,  what 
man  ought  to  be,  and  can  become."  What  was  fact  and 
certain  history  to  the  four  Evangelists,  is  to  us  "  a  sacred 
mythus  and  poetry."  "  The  points  of  view  only  are  dif- 
ferent :  human  nature,  and  the  religious  impulse  in  it,  re- 
main ever  the  same."1  "  To  know  the  ideal  Christ,"  says 
Strauss,  quoting  Spinoza,  "  namely,  the  eternal  wisdom  of 
God,  which  is  manifested  in  all  things,  in  the  human  mind 
particularly,  and  especially  in  Jesus  Christ,  alone  is  neces- 
sary."2 "  The  key  to  the  whole  of  Christology  Acce  tg 
is  this,"  he  again  says:  "That  an  idea,  instead  ^Hf'9 
of  an  individual,  is  set  forth  as  the  subject  of  the 
attributes  which  are  attributed  to  Christ  in  the  Church  doc- 
trine. Humanity  is  the  union  of  both  natures.  Humanity 
is  the  miracle-worker.  Humanity,  not  the  individual,  but 
the  race,  is  the  sinless  one.  Humanity  is  that  which  dies, 
and  rises  again,  and  ascends  towards  heaven.  This  alone 
is  the  absolute  subject-matter  of  Christology :  the  circum- 
stance that  it  appears  in  the  person  and  history  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  is  but  the  poetical  dress  of  the  doctrine." 3 
Strauss  even  makes  the  Evangelists  them- 

Thinks  the 

selves   profess   pantheism,   where   they   say   of     eonseioua- 

i  Life  of  Jesus,  Vol.  IT.,  §  149.  2  ibid. 

3  Dr.  W.  H.  Mill's  "  Observations  on  the  Attempted  Application  of  Panthe- 
istic Principles  to  the  Theory  and  Historic  Criticism  of  the  Gospels"  (Cam- 
bridge, England,  1861). 


164  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

ness  of          Christ  "  that  he  recognized  God  as  his  Father, 

would  have      God's  CaUSC  as  his  Own,  Was  conscious  of  know- 
responded          «  1          T-1       1  • 

to  his  criti-  ing  the  r  ather,  and  resigned  his  own  will  to 
the  divine,  where  he  speaks  expressly  of  his 
oneness  with  the  Father,  and  sets  himself  forth  as  the 
visible  manifestation  of  the  same.  Such  utterances  were 
without  pretension,  arising  from  no  transient  elevation 
of  mind,  but  from  the  conviction  of  his  whole  life. 
All  his  acts  and  discourses  were  penetrated  with  this 
consciousness  as  with  a  soul." l  The  Gospels  portray  to  us 
such  a  personage;  and  his  existence  is  not  historically 
but  ideally  true,  which  alone  is  scientifically  possible. 
lie  is  the  absolute  idea,  shining  forth  in  the  human 
consciousness  for  a  season,  and  then  sinking  back  into 
the  infinite  depths,  to  be  succeeded  by  another  and  more 
glorious  tbeophany,  in  the  progressive  thought  of  the  race. 
We  may  compare  the  doctrine  of  Strauss,  or  rather  of 
Hegel,  to  the  phenomena  of  evaporation  in  nature.  The 
waters  above  the  firmament  are  one  with  the  waters  under 
the  firmament.  The  mists,  which  pile  themselves  in  fleecy 
masses  of  silver  and  gold  along  the  calm  heights  of  the 
sky,  are  still  the  ocean  which  sent  them  up,  and  they  nre 
constantly  falling  back  into  it,  as  it  is  all  the  time  rising 
into  their  beautiful  forms.  In  the  Christology  of  Strauss, 
the  absolute  idea  is  the  ocean, —  a  sea  unfathomed 
record  a  and  without  shore.  This,  coming  forth  into  the 

piece  of  .  . 

cloud  human  consciousness,  paints  that  piece  ot  eor- 

painting. 

geous  cloud-scenery,  the  story  of  the  Nazarene. 
But  the  abysmal  depths  are  forever  reclaiming  the  iridescent 
vapor  which  they  send  up.  The  sweet  Evangel  cannot- retain 
that  which  fills  it  with  its  rainbow  hues.  Even  while  we 

i  Dr.  Mill,  p.  50. 


PANTHEISM.  165 

look  it  is  not  the  same,  but  changing  every  moment.  The 
one  changeless  and  eternal  thing  in  all  this,  is  the  absolute 
idea ;  which  these  moving  splendors  serve  but  to  reveal, 
and  besides  which  there  is  no  value  or  reality  in  the  whole 
display. 

Now  this  pantheism  of  Strauss,  from  which  he  Advantage 
undertook  the    criticism  of  the   Gospels,  gave  theisticPpo- 
him  a  certain  vantage-ground.     It  enabled  him 
to  deal  a  death-blow  to  the  naturalistic  school  of  critics,  of 
which  Paulus  was  the  leader.     This  school  was   The  Paul. 
already  in  its   decadence  when  he  wrote.      It  lsts- 
had  tried  to   apply  to  the   Christian  Scriptures  such  rules 
of  interpretation  as  Evemerus,  an  ancient  Greek 

Evemerus. 

critic,  applied  to  the  classical  mythology.  Eve- 
.merus  held  that  the  Greek  gods  and  heroes  were  ex- 
traordinary men,  who  to  increase  their  power  had  sur- 
rounded themselves  with  a  nimbus  of  divinity,  or  whom 
tradition  had  invested  with  superhuman  attributes.1  The 
Wolfenbiittel  Fragmentist  was  among  the  first  of  His  method 
modern  interpreters  to  apply  this  theory  to  the  .LSng^di- 
biblical  record.  He  would  not  even  admit  the  vvoifenbut- 

tel  Frag- 

honesty  of  the  great  leaders  and  teachers  whom   ments, 
the  Bible  names.     They  were  designing  men,  who  feigned 
inspiration  and  intercourse  with  the  God   of  heaven,  to 
gain   influence   over  the  masses  of  the  people.     To   this 
extent  Paulus  did  not  go.     He  still  claimed  that 
men  of  such  benevolence   as  Abraham,  Moses,   ,H°^  u,sed 

'    by  Paulus. 

David,  Paul,  and  who  really  accomplished  so 

1  For  some  account  of  Evemerus  see  Grote  (Harper's  edition),  Vol.  I,,  pp. 
411,  412. 


166         HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

much  good,  could  not  be  wilful  deceivers.  But  they  might 
be  self-deceived.  They  might  mistake  their  natural  en- 
thusiasm for  a  supernatural  afflatus.  Their  conviction  of 
the  vast  importance  of  what  they  were  doing,  might  give 
rise  to  a  belief  of  divine  authority  to  do  it.  No  miracle  is 
to  be  admitted  anywhere  ;  yet  the  honesty  of  the  writers 
and  actors,  and  the  historical  character  of  the  record,  are 
to  be  maintained. 

Wild  as  the  attempt  may  seem,  yet  it  is  a  fact 
SeBthS>?y.  tnat  Paulus  sought  to  explain  the  Bible  on  this 
theory.  Our  first  pa-rents  ate  some  poisonous 
fruit,  which  planted  in  them  the  seeds  of  hereditary  dis- 
ease :  this,  on  naturalistic  principles,  may  be  regarded  as 
the  historic  fact  of  the  Fall  and  its  consequences.  Moses 
built  a  large  fire  on  Mount  Sinai,  and  just  then  a  thunder- 
storm arose.  When  he  came  down  to  the  people,  his  face 
shone  as  the  natural  effect  of  so  much  excitement.  So, 
too,  in  the  New  Testament.  Early  one  morning  Christ  i*s 
with  three  of  his  disciples  in  a  mountain.  He  is-  above 
them,  towards  the  east,  on  the  highest  peak ;  when  the 
sun,  suddenly  rising  behind  him,  makes  his  whole  person 
shine,  so  that  the  disciples  are  blinded  by  looking  at  him. 
Peter  did  not  find  the  tribute-money  in  the  mouth  of  the 
fish ;  this  is  only  a  nice  way  of  telling  what  did  occur, 
namely,  that  he  caught  the  fish  and  sold  it  for  the  money. 
Christ  and  his  disciples  took  wine  with  them  to  the  wed- 
ding at  Cana ;  and  it  was  their  putting  this  into  the  six 
water-jars,  through  a  quiet  understanding  with  the  servants, 
which  constitutes  the  historical  matter  in  the  narrative. 
Thus  would  a  Paulist  go  along  through  the  record,  enucle- 
ating so  much  of  it  as  is  not  supernatural,  and  holding  that 


PANTHEISM.  167 

this,  or  some  equivalent,  is  literal  history ;  while  the  rest 
is  but  embellishment,  —  the  result  of  a  rich  Oriental  fan-cy, 
or  of  that  tendency  to  exaggerate  which  }s  in  all  great  story- 
tellers. Paulus  has  some  followers  even  at  the  present  day, 
as  the  work  of  Schenkel  on  the  Character  of  Jesus  may 
serve  to  attest.  No  one,  excepting  always  a  German  with 
a  theory  to  maintain,  can  fail  to  see  that  the  nat- 
uralism of  Paulus  was  an  ignoble  failure.  His  Jf5JjJedaB 
attempt  made  it  plain,  if  it  was  not  clear  before, 
that  we  must  admit  the  supernatural  in  Revelation,  or  we 
cannot  regard  it  as  in  any  proper  sense  historical. 

Eichhorn,  who  was  contemporary  with  Paulus, 
applied  the  method  of  Evemerus  to  biblical  in- 
terpretation. The  same  is  true  also  ofDeWet-  - 

De  Wette. 

te  to  some   extent.     But  these   scholars  either 
lacked  the  intrepidity  of  Paulus,  or  they  had  a  keener  sense 
than  he  of  the  puerile  tendencies  of  his  criticism.     They 
did   not   wish  to   divest   the    Scriptures    of  all    dignity. 
Therefore,  while  pursuing  a  course  which  in  many  things 
sustained  the  orthodox  faith,  in  some  things  they -leaned 
towards  the  view  of  Paulus,  and  in  other  things  they  were 
inclined   to   grant  the  Tubingen   theory    of   a    poetizing 
fancy.     The  inspired  writers  are  communicating 
truth  everywhere,  but  in  some  cases  their  en-  biThon^SS 
thtisiasm  makes  the  dress  in  which  they  clothe   8u™8ytii- 
it.     It  is  this  concession  of  an  unhistorical  ele- 
ment, by  De  Wette,  but  more    especially  by  Eichhorn, 
which  Strauss  does  not  fail  to  seize  upon  as  a  partial  and 
cautious  approach  towards  his  own  theory  of  the  mythus. 
Indeed,  he  goes  back  of  them,  even   to  Origen  and  Philo, 
for  the  germs  of  his  theory.     I  am  not  careful  here  to 


168  HALF    TRUTHS    AJtfD    THE    TRUTH. 

defend  either  of  those  early  interpreters.  Philo  was  an 
acknowledged  Neo-Platonist ;  and  Origen  felt  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Alexandrine  pantheism.  Therefore 
nn?ndOri"  ^iey  nla^  nave  both  applied  a  pantheistic  exe- 
gesis to  the  sacred  records.  But  it  is  certain  that 
Origen,  to  say  the  least,  did  not  deny  the  his- 
torical validity  of  the  Scriptures.  His  allegorical  sense 
was  not  a  creative  energy,  but  a  meaning  which  he  found 
in  the  narrative.  No  doubt  there  is  some  ground  for  what 
Strauss  says  of  himself,  that  he  only  matured  a  theory  of 
interpretation  which  had  been  growing  up  for  along  time. 
The  enthusiastic  reception  his  work  met  with,  in  various 
quarters,  proves  that  the  minds  of  many  biblical  critics 
had  come  to '  be  in  sympathy  with  him.  The  appetite 
which  his  mythical  theory  gorgecl,  had  been,  to  say  the 
least,  awakened.  Even  the  orthodox  party  read  him,  not 
sorry  to  see  their  old  foes,  the  naturalistic  rationalists,  fall- 
Relation  to  *n»  unc^er  his  sturdy  assaults.  Yet  they  them- 
schoois  of  selves  were  in  no  better  plight.  Strauss  saved 
criticism.  them  from  the  Paulists,  only  as  the  hawks 
saved  the  doves  from  the  kites.  They  were,  like  Samson, 
crushed  themselves  by  what  they  pulled  down  upon  their 
enemies.  Paulus  admitted  that  the  Bible  is  historical, 
but  not  supernatural ;  Strauss  denied  that  it  is  either. 
To  his  view  the  Bible,  and  especially  its  Christology,  is 
the  product  of  the  absolute  idea,  working  in  the  reli- 
gious imagination  of  the  Hebrew  race  for  the  most  part. 
This  idea,  coming  to  self-consciousness  in  the  religious 
thinking  of  men,  is  the  whole  reality  in  sacred 
Scripture,  as  Hegel  had  taught  him  to  say  ;  and 


Secret  of 


in  jnst  this  fact,  that  Strauss   was  a  Hegelian 


PANTHEISM.  169 

speaking  to  a  generation  of  Hegelians,  is  the  secret  of  the 
prodigious  popularity  of  his  work. 

The  orthodox  principle  of  interpretation  is,    Three  prin- 
ciples of 
that  the  biblical  record  is  historical,  and  much     interpret-  . 

tiou. 

of  it  supernatural,  —  as  it  ought  to  be,  since 
it  describes  ^  a  coming  down  of  the  omnipotent  God 
into  nature  to  save  sinful  men.  The  naturalistic  ration- 
alist admits  its  historical  validity,  but  tries  to  get  rid 
of  the  supernatural.  The  mythologist  denies  that  it  is 
either  history  or  miracle,  making  it  a  product  of  the  re- 
ligious imagination.  The  mythical  theory  differs  from  the 
legendary,  —  the  latter  granting  some  weight  to  historical 
facts,  while  the  former  affirms  that  it  is  indifferent  whether 
the  narrative  be  true  or  false.  These  two  theories  differ 
rather  in  decree  than  in  kind,  however,  while 

The  posi- 

the  more  extreme,  namely,  the  mythical,  is  that       tionof 

Strauss. 

held  by  Strauss.  So  much  of  the  record  as  is 
supernatural,  is  of  course  unhistoric,  since  it  all  is  but  the 
fruit  of  human  thinking.  And  so  much  of  it  as  might 
have  happened,  is  given  not  because  it  happened,  but  be- 
cause it  is  a  convenient  form  in  which  the  thought,  working 
itself  out,  maybe  embodied.  JEsop  makes  the  dumb  ani- 
mals, the  fishes,  and  the  reptiles  talk  tog-ether 

The  myth. 

with  man,  in  his  efforts  to  convey  truth :  the 
writers  of  the  Bible  have  used  'a  similar  liberty.  They 
tell  of  what  did  not  take  place,  and  of  what  could  not  take 
place,  more"  or  less  mingled,  perhaps,  with  actual  occur- 
rences, with  the  sole  purpose  of  giving  forth  that  religious 
idea  which  is  struggling  for  expression  within  them. 

In  order  to  make  room  for  the  growth  of  the  Evangelical 


170  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

mythus,  such  as  his  pantheistic  philosophy  requires,  Strauss 

puts  the  origin  of  the  Gospels  forward  into  the 

Strauss         second  century  of  our  era.     Jerusalem  had  been 

makes  room 

for  his          destroyed  at  least  fifty  years,  and  the  Christians 

theory. 

were  scattered  abroad  throughout  the  Roman 
empire.  None  of  the  immediate  friends  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  not  even  any  who  had  conversed  with  those 
friends,  were  now  living.  There  was,  among  those  thus 
scattered  abroad,  a  tradition  that  Jesus  had  been  a  Rabbi 
of  a  singularly  pure  and  noble  character,  who  had  suffered 
a  most  cruel  death  some  time  before  their  dispersion. 
This  story,  handed  on  from  the  elder  to  the  younger,  and 
carried  from  place  to  place  in  an  unwritten  form,  naturally 
grew  on  the  lips  of  the  exiles,  and  shaped  itself  to  their 
ideas  and  feelings.  It  became  a  type  of  their  calamity, 
and  of  their  hope ;  that  is,  a  mythus,  —  like  the  legend  of 
William  Tell,  mistaken  by  some  for  actual  history,  which 
is  but  a  symbol  of  the  Swiss  struggle  for  liberty.  The 

Jewish  nation  has  been  violently  overthrown  ; 
the  product  and  the  story  ran  that  the  good  Rabbi  from 

of  the  idea. 

Nazareth  was  cruelly  killed.  But  the  Jewish 
nation  is  to  be  restored  ;  therefore  Jesus,  its  mythical  type, 
is  imagined  to  have  risen  from  the  dead,  and  ascended  into 
heaven.  The  Messianic  spirit,  having  thus  seized  upon 
the  tradition,  connects  it  with  Old  Testament  prophecies. 
Therefore  a  birth  and  childhood  of  Jesus  are  imagined, 
and  a  public  ministry  and  sufferings,  answering  to  the  early 
predictions  of  a  Messiah.  "  Such  and  such  things  must 
have  happened  to  the  Messiah ;  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  ; 
therefore  such  and  such  things  happened  to  him."  1  The 

1  Life  of  Jesus,  Vol.  I.,  p.  07. 


PANTHEISM.  171 

mythus  is  "the  product  of  the  idea."  Jesus  is  greater 
than  any  that  went  before  him,  therefore  greater  marvels 
must  have  attended  him.  Because  the  face  of  Moses 
shone,  he  must  be  transfigured.  There  were  twelve  Jewish 
tribes,  hence  he  must  have  twelve  disciples.  Whatever 
the  Messiah  was  expected  to  do,  he  is  fancied  as  doing ; 
and  the  name  Son  of  God,  given  to  him,  grows  out  of  the 
feeling  that  the  Hebrew  nation,  which  he  ideally  typified, 
is  the  chosen  favorite  of  heaven. 

Thus  did  the  Gospel  narratives  grow  up.  They  belong 
to  the  post-apostolic  nge.  They  are  not  history,  but 
national  religious  poems ;  not  the,  work  of  particular  indi- 
viduals, but  of  a  whole  people,  which  certain  persons  after 
a  while  took  the  liberty  of  reducing  to  writing.  If  we 
ask  Strauss  why  these  writers  did  not  put  their  own  names 
'to  their  works  ;  why  they  have  practised  a  fraud  upon  us 
in' representing  those  works  as  written  by  the  companions 
of  Christ  and  the  apostles,  his  reply  is,  "  The  most  repu- 
table authors,  amongst  the  Jews  and  early  Christians,  pub- 
lished their  works  with  the  substitution  of  venerated  names, 
without  an  idea  that  they  were  guilty  of  any  falsehood  or 
deceit  in  so  doing."  l  Such  is  one  of  tjie  exigencies  into 
which  the  theory  of  Strauss  brings  him.  In  order  to  give 
the  Evangelical  mythus  time  to  grow  up,  the  Gospel  narra- 
tives are  declared  to  be  post-apostolic.  Thus 
he  is  obliged  to  admit  that  the  writers  practised  lows  if °the 

Gospels  are 

literary  forgery.     Yet  he  sees  no  immorality  in  post-apos- 
their  conduct,  but  thinks  they  were   under  the 
influence  of  the  most  exalted  motives  !     The  absolute  idea 
of  religion,  revealing  itself  in  the  national  mind,  is  what 

i  Life  of  Jesus,  Vol.  I.,  p.  68. 


172          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

we  are  to  see  and  admire,  —  revering  it  not  the  less,  but 
the  more,  for  working  itself  out  through  so  much  story- 
telling and  innocent  trickery !  This  may  meet  the  highest 
demands  of  a  Straussian  conscience,  perhaps ;  but  there 
are  still  a  few  persons  in  the  world  of  so  singular  a  turn 
of  mind  as  to  refuse  the  nostrum,  preferring  a  little  less 
absolute,  and  a  little  more  honesty.  We  think  it  not  so 
likely  that  the  authors  of  the  four  Gospels  should  occupy 
themselves  with  inventing  lies,  as  that  this  Whittington- 
and-his-cat  theory  of  the  life  of  Christ  should  be  false. 
We  claim  strong  internal  evidence  for  our  conclusion ; 
since  it  is  the  charm  of  the  Gospels  that  they  have  none 

of  the  air  of  poetic  fiction,  but  everywhere  give 
evidence  us  wnat  profess  to  be  actual  events,  in  the  sim- 
sfrauss  plest  and  plainest  style.  There  is  no\yhere  any 

impression  or  hint  of  a  myth.  If  a  fraud,  it  is 
the  wickedest  of  all  frauds,  for  every  word  of  it  has  the  his- 
toric stamp.  That  which  not  only  so  stirs  us,  but  is  so  real 
to  us  in  all  its  alleged  facts,  cannot  be  mere  literary  inven- 
tion. Its  roots  must  go  down  into  the  world  of  objective 
truth,  which  man  beholds  but  does  not  create,  and  which 
will  be  the  same  when  his  place  knows  him  no  more. 

But  we  do  not  rely  on  this  internal  evidence 
evidence  alone  —  evidence  which  the  impotent  charge  of 
Eternal!**11  f°rgerv  d°es  not  brush  aside.  There  is  strong 

external  evidence,  going  to  confirm  our  con- 
clusion, that  the  Gospels  were  written  by  the  men  whose 
names  they  bear.  Before  the  time  to  which  Strauss 
assigns  the  origin  of  the  Evangelical  writings,  they  were 
quoted  as  works  well  known  among  the  Christians. 
Already,  even  in  regard  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  last 


PANTHEISM.  173 

written,  Justin  Martyr,  Papias,  and  others  had  testified  to 
its  existence,  by  quoting  from  it  and  repeatedly  referring 
to  it.  In  order  to  escape  this  historic  testi- 

How  Strauss 

rnony,  Strauss  invents  .the  fiction  of  a  Gospel  would  evade 

afterwards  lost,  to  which  the  apostolic  fathers 

and  the  early  critics  refer,  and  on  which  those  we  now 

have  were  founded.     But  however  grand  or  fruitful  the 

Hegelian  philosophy  may  be,   we    must  be   excused   for 

thinking  it  a  little  grandiose  in  fruitfulness,  when  it  not 

only  sets  aside  well-attested  history,  but  invents  history 

of  which  there  is  no  record,  for  the  sake  of  an  unproved 

assumption.      Not   only  the   testimony   of  the 

early  fathers,  and  of  infidels  even,  as  well  as  the   Tho  «r?»- 

rm>nt  for  the 

intrinsic  character  of  the  Gospels,  but  the  geog-  SSSnof  the 
raphy  of  Palestine  itself,  is  to-day  a  refutation  SewSiSeV 
of  the  theory  of  Strauss.  The  origin  of  the 
Gospels  was  not  mythical,  but  historical.  They  are  not 
merely  ideally  but  objectively  true.  No  hypothesis  solves 
the  problem  of  their  origin,  as  presented  in  the  light  of 
contemporary  events,  but  that  which  affirms  them  to  have 
been  written  by  the  men  whose  names  they  bear,  eye- 
witnesses and  ear-witnesses  of  the  supernatural  facts 
which  they  record. 

The  Tubingen  school  of  criticism  would  have 
fallen  into  disrepute  sooner  than  it  did,  but  for 
the  efforts  of  Ferdinand  C.  Baur,  perhaps  its  most  skilful 
representative.     He   does    not,   in   the   same   unqualified 
sense  as  Strauss,  seem  committed  to  the  philosophy  of 
Hegel.     He  wrote   an   adverse  criticism   on  the  Life  of 
Jesus,  when  that  work  first  came  out.     But  however  the 


174         HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

two  men  may  differ  as  between  themselves,  in  their  atti- 
tude towards  historical  Christianity  they  agree.     Strauss 
regards  the  Messianic  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  Hebrew 
race   as   the  germ   of  the  Gospels.     The  view  of  Baur, 
though  mythical  like  this,  is  that  the  writings 
stnmss8[r°m   of  the  ^ew  Testament  must  be  traced  to  a  less 
poetical  source,  namely,  the  conflict  which  had 
arisen   between   Jewish    and   Gentile    Christianity.      His 
statement  of  this  theory,  as  well  as  his  defence  of  it,  is 
very  ingenious.     There  were  two  parties  in  the 
cnurch5  —  a  Petrine  and  a  Pauline  party, 
latter  were  desirous  that  the  Jewish  faith 
should  merge   itself  into  a  world-religion,  the 
former  wished  it  to  be  kept  strictly  within  the  old  national 
limits.     In  the  dispersed  condition  of  the  Jews,  living  in 
Roman    and    Greek    communities,   everything    naturally 
favored  the  Gentile  party.     It  grew  steadily,  especially  by 
the  incoming  of  Gentile  converts,  while  its  rival  faction  as 
steadily  lost  ground.     As  time  passed  on,  and  the  once 
clear  authority  of  the  Mosaic  laws  had  grown  dim,  even 
in  the  minds  of  the  Petrine  or  conservative  party,  certain 
of  the  progressive  or  Pauline  party  stepped  forward,  and 
supplemented   the   Old  Testament  records  by  inventing 
'the  writings  which  compose  the  New  Testament.     They 
showed  that  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  pointed 
forward  to  something,  and  that  something  they  supplied 
in   the  Gospels  and  Epistles.     These  writings 
conf!?ctfaiia    wei'e  so  shaped  as  to,  suit  the  ancient  tradition, 
them'5h        as  to  represent  a  long  and  varying  struggle  be- 
tween Jewish  and  Gentile  Christianity,  and  as 
in  the  end   to  give  the   latter  the   ascendency  over  the 


PANTHEISM.  175 

former.     Christ  is  portrayed  as  less  and  less  Jewish,  and 
more  and  more  favorable  to  the  Gentiles,  as  the 
feigned  narrative  goes  forward.     This  is  shown 
in  his  denunciations  of  the  Pharisees,  while  he 
befriends  outcasts ;  also  in  his  formal  discourses,    Pa"tyue 
and  especially  in  his  parables.     The  lost  sheep, 
the  pieces  of  silver,  the  prodigal  son,  awakening  so  much 
concern  in  each  instance,  are  the  Gentile  world.     The  un- 
just steward,  whom  his  lord  puts  out  of  the  stewardship, 
is  Israel.     The  fact  of  descent  from  Abraham  is  to  be  dis- 
regarded ;   Christ  proclaims  a  religion  which   is  equally 
open  to  all  men.     Those  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Judge 
in  the  last  day  are  good  Gentiles ;  true  subjects  of  the  new 
kingdom,  though  kept  in  ignorance  of  their  relation  to 
Christ  by  the  Petrine  teachings.    Those  on  the  left  hand 
are  bad  Jews,  rejected  for  lack  of  such  obedience  as  the 
others  have  shown.     Peter  is  more  a  name  than  a  person, 
representing  the  narrow  view.     He  has  precedence  in  the 
apostolic  college,  as  the  Jews  had  in  the  matter  of  revela- 
tion.    But  he  does  many  weak  things,  such  as  denying 
his  Master,  waiting  for  a  vision  before  he  will 
visit  Cornelius,  and  refusing  to   eat  with   the      fp^a™.8 
Gentiles  after  his  doing  so  had  offended  some 
at  Jerusalem.     Gradually  he  is  made  to  acquire  broader 
views,  yet  he  cannot  quite  put  away  his  exclusive  feelings ; 
and  finally,  after  some  collisions  with  the  party  of  prog- 
ress, in  which  he  is  uniformly  put  to  the  worse,  he  sinks 
out  of  the  so-called  history  altogether.     Meanwhile  the 
liberal  tendency,  for  the  sake  of  which  the  New  Testa- 
ment writings  were   drawn   up,  is   described   as  making 
rapid  headway,  and  as  absorbing  the  whole  energy  and 


176          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TEUTH. 

piety  of  the  church.     Not  only  does  it  show  to  advantage 

throughout  the  Evangelical  mythus,  but  especially  in  the 

•Acts  of  the  Apostles.     Paul,  the  representative 

The  Paul- 

ine party  nian  of  this  movement,  is  the  great  missionary, 
entirely  eclipsing  Peter,  withstanding  him  to 
the  face  because  he  was  to  be  blamed,  and  forcing  him  at 
last  to  yield  his  pretensions.  Various  treatises  are  added, 
which,  to  increase  their  influence,  are  called  the  Epistles 
of  Paul,  or  of  those  who  in  the  main  accepted  his  views. 
Even  Peter  is  made  to  indorse  the  Pauline  party,  in  his 
Epistles,  so  called.  Baur  concedes  that  some  of  the  trea- 
tises ascribed  to  Paul  were  written  by  him  ;  but  the  Gen- 
tile spirit  predominates  in  these  no  more  than  in  those 
whose  authorship  is  uncertain.  The  object  of  them  all  is, 
to  impress  it  upon  the  minds  of  the  early  Christians,  that 
either  the  liberal  party  in  the  church  must  triumph,  or  the 
whole  Evangelical  idea,  as  well  as  the  Messianic  idea  back 
of  it,  must  be  given  up.  -Baur  thinks  that  many  a  Juda- 
izing  Christian,  in  the  second  century  and  near  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third,  falling  in  with  the  New  Testament 
writings  and  reading  them  thoughtfully,  must 
The  reason-  have  been  persuaded  to  give  up  his  Judaism, 

in«r  of  Baur  ° 


ancl  accept  the  newer  doctrine  of  a  world-reli- 

sible. 

gion.  To  beget  such  a  persuasion  was  the  pur- 
pose of  the  authentic  treatises,  and  of  the  feigned  letters 
and  narratives.  This  purpose  emboldened  the  writers, 
whoever  they  were,  to  do  what  is  sometimes  done  by  the 
correspondents  of  newspapers.  They  imagined  the  sto- 
ries they  wrote  out  ;  and  these,  for  lack  of  a  rigid  criti- 
cism, such  as  Baur  and  his  school  now  apply  to  them, 
gained  general  currency  among  the  credulous  friends  of 


PANTHEISM.  177 

the  broad-church  party.  Histories  were  invented,  for 
which  those  who  knew  Jesus  personally  are  made  to 
vouch,  and  essays  were  composed,  at  the  head  of  which 
stood  apostolic  names ;  and  so  childish  was  the  age,  and 
ready  to  be  duped,  that  this  deception  passed  without 
successful  challenge.  It  was  not  till  nearly  two  thousand 
years  after,  that,  the  Daniel  of  biblical  criticism,  in  the 
form  of  the  Tubingen  school,  came  to  judgment. 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  the  position  of  Baur,  with 
reference  to  the  historical  validity  of  the  New  Testament, 
is  substantially  that  of  Strauss.  Hence  the  facts  which 
refute  one  are  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  other.  Having 
already  indicated  what  those  facts  are,  I  need 
not  repeat  them  here.  Those  who  wish  to  ex- 
amine  the  whole  question  of  the  historical  valid- 
ity  of  the  New  Testament,  need  hardly  to  be 
referred  to  the  many  volumes  of  recent  critics,  in  which 
this  matter  is  ably  discussed.  One  of  the  best  of  these, 
for  general  use,  is  Professor  Fisher's  work  on  the  Super- 
natural Origin  of  Christianity.  This  work  makes  it  clear, 
by  a  full  and  scientific  treatment  of  the  subject,  that  the 
ground  of  Baur  is  untenable. 

To  the  special  view  of  Baur  respecting  parties  in  the 
apostolic  church,  there  is  no  objection.     Such  parties  un- 
doubtedly did  exist.    They  are  plainly  described 
to   us   in   the   New  Testament   history.     It   is 
Baur's  fault,  that  instead  of  finding  them  in  the 
history,  he  makes  them  create  the  so-called  his- 
tory.    He  finds  the  evangelical  record  in  his  idea,  rather 
than  the  grounds  of  his  idea  in  the  record.     In  doing  this, 
he  shows  the  peculiar  vice  of  German  thinkers.     When 
12 


178          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

they  have  found  a  theory,  they  are  inclined  to  make  that 
theory  the  source  of  whatever  else  they  find.  With  Baur 
the  idea  of  two  parties  originates  the  New  Testament 
writings,  as  the  Messianic  idea  does  with  Strausa.  And 
in  this  producing  power  of  the  idea  they  both  follow 
Hegel,  who  finds  in  his  absolute  idea  the  creative  sub- 
stance of  all  things.  We  find,  in  the  history  f  of  the 
United  States  soon  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution, 
two  political  parties,  —  the  federal,  led  by  John  Adams, 
and  the  republican,  led  by  Thomas  JeiFerson.  But  what 
would  be  thought  of  the  critic  who,  discovering  this  con- 
flict, should  declare  that  it,  for  the  partisan  purposes  of 
one  side  or  the  other,  has  created  all  our  so-called  national 
history ;  that  the  record  is  simply  an  imaginary 
treatment  dress,  in  which  some  partial  champion  has  em- 
bodied his  view  of  the  conflict ;  that  the  strug- 
gle did  not  begin  till  some  time  after  the  date  assigned ; 
that  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  Adams  and  Jefferson  are 
not,  after  all,  only  the  myths  which  some  politician  has 
imagined ;  while  it  is  certain  that  they  never  penned  many 
of  the  writings  which  now  claim  their  authorship  ?  Yet 
this  is  not  an  unfair  illustration  of  the  spirit  of  the  Tu- 
bingen criticism.  Not  satisfied  with  running  its  theory 
into  the  ground,  it  runs  the  ground  into  its  theory. 

The  ancients  had  their  muse  of  history,  whose  aid  they 
reverently  invoked,  while  attempting  to  set  past  events  in 
order.  Did  they  not,  in  this,  recognize  a  universal  human 
infirmity  ?  Even  our  secular  historians  carry  back  their 
private  views,  to  the  serious  discoloring  of  that  which 
they  would  describe.  It  was  left  for  Strauss  and  Baur  to 
enthrone  this  infirmity,  and  make  it  the  originator  of  the 


PANTHEISM.  179 

sacred  annals.  But  there  is  a  Muse  of  evangelical  history. 
Holy  men  wrote  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
This  divine  inspiration  saved  them  from  the  error  to 
which  all  historians  are  liable.  It  kept  them  back  from 
the  mythical  abyss  into  which  Baur  and  Strauss  fell  head- 
long. It  enabled  them  to  record  God's  thoughts  towards 
us,  and  the  great  facts  of  redemption,  with,  no  damaging 
admixture  of  subjective  theory;  so  that  we  do 

Strauss  and 

well  to  take  heed  to  their  words,  as  to  a  light   Baur  fur- 
nish an  ar- 
that  shineth  in  a  dark  place.     There  are  many   gument  for 

inspiration. 

arguments  for  inspiration,  but  I  know  of  none 
more  powerful  than  the  rise  of  the  Tubingen  school  of 
criticism.  If  we  are  to  have  a  revelation  from  the  Father 
of  our  spirits,  and  not  sink  into  naturalism  or  blank  ideal- 
ism, there  is  no  mere  man  whom  we  can  dare  to  trust. 
That  revelation,  our  sorest  need,  must  come  through  per- 
sons whom  God  has  inspired  to  speak  his  words  unto  us, 
and  whom  he  so  saves  from  their  own  imperfections,  that 
they  shall  neither  add  anything  to  the  message  nor  take 
anything  away.  • 

A  word  only  is  needed,  in  this  place,  respecting 
the  legendary  theory  of  Renan.     His  Life  of 
Jesus,  and  connected  works,  have  been  extensively  read. 
And  no   wonder;  for  they  clothe  in   a  fascinating  garb 
theories  easily  made  plausible  to  minds  but  partially  in- 
formed.    Yet  the  careful  reader  soon  finds  that  Kenan's 
doctrine  is  not  original ;   it  is  a  French  imitation.     His 
theory  hardly  seems  to  me  to  require  any  sepa- 

Requires  no 

rate  treatment.     Though  he  gives   more  space    separate 

•treatment. 

to  the  historical  element  than  either  Baur  or 


180          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Strauss,  —  as  he  could  not  well  help  doing,  being  familiar 
with  the  geography  of  Palestine,  and  writing  in  the  midst 
of  it,  —  yet  the  pantheistic  flavor  of  his  thought  often 
rises  to  the  surface.  It  is  true  that  he  rejects  the  mythical 
theory,  and  adopts  the  legendary ;  but  he  still  says  that  the 
criticism  of  the  gospel-text  by  Strauss  "  leaves  little  to  be 
desired."  He  also  speaks  of  Christianity  itself  as  an 
"  evolution  by  which  the  noblest  portions  of  humanity 
passed  from  the  ancient  religions."  He  says,  with  evident 
reference  to  the  pantheistic  doctrine  of  the  absolute,  "No 
passing  vision  exhausts  divinity ;  God  was  revealed  before 
Jesus,  God  will  be  revealed  after  him.  Widely  unequal, 
and  so  much  the  more  divine  as  they  are  the  greater  and 
the  more  spontaneous,  the  manifestations  of  the  God  con- 
cealed in  the  depths  of  the  human  conscience  are  all  of 
the  same  order."  The  Christian  religion,  that  is,  though 

more  or  less  historic  in  some  of  its  forms,  is  only 
o?hisPcrifi-  an  evolution  within  humanity,  —  part  and  parcel 
the?etw.n"  of  tnat  thought-process  which  is  all  the  time 

going  forward  in  man.  That  such  is  the  philo- 
sophical germ  of  Kenan's  criticism,  so  far  as  it  has  any, 
and  that  he  should  be  met  on  the  same  ground  as  other 
pantheists,  is  further  indicated  where  he  says,  "  If  we  ex- 
cept the  French  Revolution,  no  historic  medium  was  so 
fitting  as  that  in  which  Jesus  was  formed,  to  develop  those 

hidden  powers  which  humanity  holds  as  if  in 

An  irrever-  _       .  .   .       . 

cat  com-  reserve,  and  which  she  never  reveals  except  in 
her  days  of  fever  and  of  danger."  It  is  doubtful 
if  any  person,  of  less  powerful  imagination  than  Renan, 
would  have  seen  much  likeness  between  the  stormy  times 
of  Robespierre  and  the  peaceful  Galilean  society  in  which 


PANTHEISM.  181 

the  Son  of  Mary  grew  up;  and  with  the  exceedingly 
liberal  compliment  given  to  Jesus,  by  insinuating  that  he 
was  only  second  to  the  leaders  of  revolutionary  France, 
we  dismiss  this  popular  critic  to  those  who  ignorantly 
admire  him,  not  knowing  what  they  worship. 

I  only  allude  here,  in  conclusion,  to  the  still  Free  re- 
more  recent  movement  which  calls  itself  Free    l°1011' 
Religion.     The  peculiarity  of.this  is,  that  it  finds  more  or 
less  of  religious  truth  in  all  religions,  and  the  whole  essence 
of  religion  in  the  human  consciousness.     Brah- 
manism,  Confucianism,  Buddhism,  Christianity,  ^Peculiar- 
all  the  forms  of  religion  now  existing,  in  short, 
should  stand  together  in  brotherly  fellowship.     For  they 
have  all  been  developed  by  the  same  idea  in  man  ;  none 
of  them  are  of  supernatural  origin,  or  have  any  supreme 
authority ;  and  that  in  us  which  gave  birth  to  these,  is 
steadily  crowding  them  aside  with  something  better.     It 
will  be  seen  at  a  glance  what  is   the  parentage  of  this 
theory.     While  vainly  striving  to  cling  to  the  ghost  of  a 
departed  theism,  it  is  but  the  last  and  puny  child  of  a 
philosophy  already  overthrown.     It  is  the  dying 
echo  of  the  voice  which  Hegel  lifted  up  so  long  traced  to 
ago.     It  is  the  faint  resonance,  on  this  distant 
shore,  of  a  wave  whose  original  force  is  spent.     Let  pan- 
theism,   like    the    divine    revelation,    have    its     "minor 
prophets  "  if  it  must.     Yet  it  touches  our  American  pride 
somewhat,  when  we  see  those  prophets  trying  to  convert 
our  popular  literature  into  a  kind  of  Israelitish  bazaar  for 
the  display  of  the  philosophical  old-clothes  of  the  Germans. 
For  Christianity  itself,  however,  we  have  no  fear.   Chri8t;anity 
The  warlike  manifesto  which  scepticism  issued   triunjPhilIlt- 


182          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

half  a  century  ago,  has  resulted  in  its  own  signal 
defeat.  The  stone  cut  out  of  the  mountain  has  smitten 
the  pantheistic  image.  Its  fragments,  ground  to  powder 
by  the  chariot-wheels  of  truth,  are  but  the  dust  of  the 
highway  cast  up  for  the  Lord's  ransomed,  along  which  they 
are  returning  to  Zion,  —  coming  with  songs,  and  with  the 
joy  of  victory  on  their  heads. 


LECTURE  V. 

I 

THE  CULTURE  WHICH  PANTHEISM  LEGITIMATES. 

THOSE  revolutionary  tendencies  of  modern  thought,  of 
which  we  hear  so  much,  are  nowhere  more  manifest  than 
in  the  ethicnl  and  social  discussions  of  the  day. 

A  feature  of 

Theories  of  duty,  whether   public   or   private,   modern 

r  '    thought. 

have    forsaken   their   ancient   base.     In   many 
instances  they  have  even  been  faced  about,  so  that  what    H 
was  once  the  front  is  now  the  rear,  and  the  starting-point 
has    become    the    point    of   attack.     Formerly    external 
authority  was  the  rule,  but  now  spontaneity  is  the  law 
which   tends   to  prevail.     The   doctrine  that  morals  arc 
intuitive,  and  cannot  be  taught,  has  been  broached.     Hu- 
manity, in  its  spontaneous  growth,  is  the  true  basis  of  the 
state ;  and  written  compacts  are  hinderances  in  its  way, 
which  should  be  destroyed.     Marriage  should  not  rest  on 
unchanging  statutes,  but'  on  the  free  action  of  nature  in 
man.     The  family  arid  society,  instead  of  depending  on^ 
legislation,  should  be  the  unhindered  outgrowth 
iof  forces  which  are  a  law  to  themselyeg,     The  ?apn°e"t~y. 
c  MM  id  act  of 'the  individual,  of  the  family,  of  so- 
ciety, of  the  state,  all  of  which  I  here  include  under  the 
general  notion  of  Culture,  should  not  be  regulated  froni 
without,  but  from  within.     They  should  be  spontaneous, 

1  (183) 


184          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

and  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  guided  by  external  author- 
ity. That  authority  is  fictitious.  They  make  it  by  their 
own  unfolding  energy,  and  it  but  marks  a  point  in  their 
limitless  progress,  beyond  which  they  have  already  passed 
when  it  rises  into  notice. 

I  do  not  say  that  there  was  none  of  this  revolutionary 

spirit  in  ancient  times.     There  was  much  of  it.     But  it 

wrought,  for  the  most  part,  in  a  blind  and  aimless 

menta  of       way,  so  that  the  theory  of  human  culture,  which 

authority  in 

modem  appears  most  conspicuous  to  us  as  we  look  far 
back,  is  the  one  which  rests  on  external  stan- 
dards. Nor  do  I  mean  to  imply  that  this  law  of  culture 
has  at  length  been  abandoned.  It  was  never  more  loyally 
obeyed,  or  thoroughly  and  clearly  expounded,  than  at  the 
present  moment.  In  this  case,  as  in  all  others,  truth  has 
been  cleared  up  and  strengthened  by  conflict  with  error. 
The  doctrine  of  spontaneity  in  morals  no  doubt  did  good 
by  correcting  certain  exaggerations,  and  calling  attention 
to  certain  elements  which  had  been  neglected  by  the  friends 
of  truth.  That  doctrine  has  been  thoroughly  canvassed, 
however,  and  ably  refuted,  under  the  various 
^tenable!7  f°rms  it  has  taken  since  the  revival  of  Spinozism. 
Whether  known  as  Agrariamsm,  Communism, 
Chartism,  or  simply  as  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury," when  it  has  clamored  for  the  abolition  of  the 
laws  of  property,  for  free  marriage  and  free  religion,  its 
hostility  to  our  noblest  convictions  has  been  clearly  pointed 
out.  It  assumes  an  inborn  purity  in  all  men,  and  an  ab- 
sence of  evil  tendencies,  which  their  own  honest  con- 
sciousness sadly  denies  them.  It  shuts  them  away  from 
those  heavenly  ideals  which  they  did  not  originate,  and 


PANTHEISM.  185 

from  that  holy  God,  whose  authority  checks  the  evil  and 
helps  the  good  in  their  natures.  Its  liberty  is  anarchy; 
its  spontaneity  means  civil  convulsions,  social  chaos,  the 
axe,  the  knife,  the  torch,  every  man's  hand  against  every 
man.  These  disorders  are  defended  on  the  ground  that 
the  whole  fabric  of  society  has  been  wrongly  organized, 
on  a  basis  of  external  rules ;  and  it  is  claimed  that  all 
would  have  gone  forward  smoothly,  if  nothing  had  ever 
been  put  in  the  way  of  the  spontaneous  tendencies  of 
men. 

We  can  see  the  fallacy  of  the  reasoning  easily  enough, 
knowing  as  we  do  what  many  of  the  tendencies  of  human 
nature  are ;  yet  we  are  sometimes  amazed,  and 
half  persuaded  into  belief  of  the  theory,  amid  j^S^ 
the  dazzling  and  bewildering  sophistries  which 
its  advocates  throw  around  us.  We  need,  therefore,  to 
know  the  source  of  their  power.  They  must  be  forced 
back  to  a  point  which  even  they  themselves,  perhaps,  have 
not  yet  found  out.  The  ethical  doctrines,  which  they 
would  apply  to  man  and  society,  have  the  same  parentage 
as  the  theories  of  Strauss,  Baur,  and  Kenan.  Pantheism 
is  the  universal  solvent.  We  saw  how  all  the  facts  of 
the  Scriptures  disappeared  in  it ;  we  are  now  to  see  how 
the  established  regulations  of  society,  as  soon  as  they 
.touch  it,  melt  out  of  sight.  That  social  lawlessness  seething 
in  certain  quarters,  which  gets  itself  more  or  less  fiercely 
spoken  now  and  then,  may  find  in  Hegel  its  legitimate 
source.  His  philosophy  is  its  real  major  premise.  The 
spontaneous  culture,  which  it  would  substitute  for  that  of 
positiye  precept,  begins  there;  and  this  its  philosophical 
origin  we  must  clearly  see,  if  we  would  dissolve  its 


186  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

charm  and  expose  its  intrinsic  ugliness.  It  puts  on  many 
captivating  disguises.  The  Ynost  pure-hearted  feel  the 
fascination  of  some  of  its  partial  statements.  Only  in  its 
source,  and  its  relation  to  moral  evil,  do  its  repulsive 
features  come  out. 

There   are   many  recent  writers,  whose   names   might 
represent  more  or  less  this  doctrine  of  spontaneous  cul- 
ture.    Of  these  I  select,  as  best  suited  to  my  purpose,  the 
name  of  Goethe.     The  nature  and  influence  of  the  new 
movement,  and  its  relation  to  Spinozism,  can  be 

Goethe. 

traced  in  him  as  perhaps  in  no  other  popular 
writer.  It  is  evident,  as  I  shall  hope  to  show,  that  he 
ranges  himself  with  the  pantheistic  school  of  thinkers; 
and  it  will  not  be  denied  that  in  variety  of  topics,  origi- 
nality, and  beauty  of  style,  he  stands  pre-eminent.  There 
is  a  charm  in  nearly  all  that  he  has  written,  felt  even  by 
the  best  minds  at  times,  the  secret  of  which  needs  to  be 

uncovered.     It  is  for  these  reasons  that  I  now 

Why  chosen. 

call  attention  to  him.  1  do  not  attempt  a  com- 
prehensive treatment,  either  of  the  man  or  his  Writings. 
Those  who  look  for  this  will  no  doubt  be  disappointed, 
and  disposed  to  accuse  me  of  injustice.  I  am  concerned 
with  a  single  phase  of  his  character  and  influence.  This 
is  all  that  my  purpose  contemplates.  I  am  not  about  to 
give  an  estimate  of  Goethe,  but  to  show  how  a  pantheistic 
philosophy  affected  him  as  a  man  and  a  writer.  Unfortu- 
nately for  me,  it  will  be  my  duty  to  dwell  on  that  aspect 
of  Goethe's  character  which  is  least  honorable  to  him.  I 

crave   only   such   indulgence   as   is   fair,   while 

Viewed  only 

in  one  as-       doing  this  ungracious  work,  knowing  as  I  do 
the  great  merits  of  Goethe,  which  it  would  be 


PANTHEISM.  187 

out  of  place  'for  me  here  to  consider.  It  is  as  a  disciple 
of  Spinoza,  carrying  the  principles  of  pantheism  out  logi- 
cally into  his  theory  of  literature  and  life,  —  in  these  rela- 
tions and  no  other,  —  that  we  have  now  any  special  con- 
cern with  him.  He  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  foremost 
of  those  who  hold  that  the  laws  of  duty  are  not  objective, 
but  subjective;  who  reject  outward  authority,  and  fall 
back  on  spontaneous  impulse  as  the  true  guide  of  human 
conduct. 

Goethe  was  enough  younger  than  Kant  and  Lessing  to 
have  been  moulded  somewhat  by  their  writings.     From 
Jacobi  and  Herder,  also,  he  may  have  received 
hints  which  gave  a  pantheistic  turn  to  his  think-  Sinker"  of 
ing.     But  he  was  the  senior  of  Schelling,  and   Jge.°wn 
had  become  a  famous  author  before  Fichte  and 
Hegel  were   known   to   the  public.     From  this  we  infer 
that  he  did  not  take  his  speculative  views  from  the  Ger- 
man successors  of  Spinoza,  so  much  as  from  the  more 
original  source.     He  wrote  for  the  many,  and  they  for  the 
few,  yet  they  and  he  alike  followed  the  same  master. 

It  may  surprise  some  to  hear  Goethe's  name  thus  joined 
to  Spinoza's.     They  have  never  regarded  him 
as  a  pantheist.     He  has  had  multitudes  of  read-  J?™™^. 
ers,  and  still  has  not  a  few,  whom  his  superb  "lews? 
sentences  charm,  but  who  do  not  perceive  his 
underlying  theory  of  God  and  the  world.     What  that  the- 
ory was  we  need  first  of  all  to  know ;  and  that  our  fairness 
may  be  above  suspicion,  it  shall  be  given  chiefly  in  his 
own  words. 

He  has  given  us  an  account  of  the  early  working  of  his 


188          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

mind  on  religious  subjects.  Referring  to  the 
tici8m.8Cep"  Lisbon  earthquake,  which  occurred  in  his  sixth 

year,  he  says,  "  The  boy  who  was  forced  to  put 
up  with  frequent  recitals  of  the  whole  matter,  was  not  a 
little  staggered.  God,  the  creator  and  preserver  of  heaven 
and  earth,  whom  the  explanation  of  the  first  article  of  the 
creed  declared  so  wise  and  benignant,  having  given  both 
the  just  and  the  unjust  a  prey  to  the  same  destruction, 
had  not  manifested  himself,  by  any  means,  in  a  fatherly 
character.  In  vain  the  young  mind  strove  to  resist  these 
impressions." l  This  sceptical  bent,  he  adds,  was  strength- 
ened by  the  ravages  of  a  hail-storm  at  Frankfort  the  year 
after.  He  had  a  boy's  enthusiasm  for  Frederick  the 
Great,  which  his  friends,  wickedly,  as  he  thought,  did  not 
share.  "In  this  way,"  \\e  says,  "I  was  thrown  back  upon 
myself;  and  as,  in  my  sixth  year,  after  the  earthquake  at 
Lisbon,  the  goodness  of  God  had  become  to  me  in  some 
measure  suspicious,  so  I  began  now,  on  account  of  Fred- 
erick the  Second,  to  doubt  the  justice  of  the  world."2  It 
would  seem  that,  with  his  faith  in  God,  his  reverence  also 
declined.  For  he  says,  referring  to  a  later  period  in  his 
life,  "I  had  believed,  from  my  youth  upwards,  that  I  stood 
on  very  good  terms  with"  my  God  ;  nay,  I  even  fancied  io 
myself,  according  to  various  experiences,  that  he  might 
even  be  in  arrears  to  me ;  and  I  was  daring  -enough  to 
think  that  I  had  something  t9  forgive  him.  The  presump- 
tion was  founded  on  my  infinite  good-will,  to  which,  as  'it 
seemed  to  me,  he  should  have  given  better  assistance." 3 
These  admissions  are  certainly  enough  to  show  that 

1  Autobiography  (Bolm's  edition),  Vol.  I.,  p.  19. 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  33.  3  Ibid.,  p.  291. 


PANTHEISM.  189 

Goethe's  faith  in  the  positive  teachings  of  Christianity  had 
been  undermined,  and  to  bear  out  De  Quincey's  charge, 
that  he  "so  corrupted  and  clouded  his  mind,  as  not  to 
look  up  to  God  with  the  interest  of  reverence  and  awe, 
but  merely  with  the  interest  of  curiosity." 

Passing,  now,  from  the  negative  to  the  positive  side  of 
Goethe's  creed,  we  come  at  once  upon  the  essence  of  Spi- 
nozism.  This  is  his  dogmatic  position,  whatever  he  may 
have  rejected  as  a  sceptic.  Mr.  Lewes,  one  of  his  most 
ardent  admirers,  says,  "  In  his  conception  of  the  universe 

he  could  not  separate  God  from  it.     Such  a  con- 
Proofs  that 
ception   revolted  him.     He  animated   the   uni-  he  was  a 

pantheist. 

verse  with  God ;  he  animated  fact  with  divine 
life ;  he  saw  in  reality  the  incarnation  of  the  ideal ;  he 
saw  in  morality  the  high  and  harmonious  action  of  all 
human  tendencies ;  he  saw  in  art  the  highest  representa- 
tion of  life." 1  But  we  are  not  forced  to  take  the  testi- 
mony of  another,  in  learning  the  speculative  views  of 
Goethe.  He  himself  has  borne  witness.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  through  the  works  of  Bayle,  he  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  theories  of  Giordano  Bruno,  the  pan- 
theist of  the  sixteenth  century.  For  this  author  he  con- 
ceived a  warm  sympathy,  notwithstanding  Bayle's  crit- 
icisms. And  in  his  note-book,  containing  comments  on 
what  he  read,  is  the  following:  "To  discuss,  God  apart 
from  nature  is  both  difficult  and  perilous;  it  is  as  if  we 
separated  the  soul  from  the  body.  "We  know  the  soul 
onjy  through  the  medium  of  the  body,  arid  God  only 
through  nature.  Hence  the  absurdity,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
of  accusing  those  of  absurdity  who  philosophically  have 

i  Life  and  Works  of  Goethe  (Boston,  1850),  Vol.  I.,  p.  74. 


190          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTH. 

united  God  with  the  world.  For  everything  which  exists 
necessarily  pertains  to  the  essence  of  God,  because  God  is 
the  one  Being  whose  essence  includes  all  things.  Nor 
does  the  Holy  Scripture  contradict  this,  although  we  dif- 
ferently interpret  its  dogmas,  each  one  according  to  his 
own  views.  All  antiquity  thought  in  the  same  way;  an 
unanimity  wrhich  to  me  has  great  significance.  To  me 
the  judgment  of  so  many  men  speaks  highly  for  the  ra- 
tionality of  the  doctrine  of  emanation ;  though  I  am  of 
no  sect,  and  grieve  much  that  Spinoza  should  have  coupled 
this  pure  doctrine  with  his  detestable  errors." l  This 
judgment  of  Spinoza  Goethe  afterwards  reversed,  upon 
further  acquaintance,  as  we  shall  see.  In  saying  that  the 
Scriptures  are  not  opposed  to  pantheism,  he  simply  agrees 
with  other  readers  who  have  made  their  wish  father  to 
their  thought.  And  in  the  same  way  he  mistakes  the 
monotheism  of  antiquity,  expressed  in  the  mystical  lan- 
guage of  the  East,  for  downright  pantheism.  But  what 
the  quotation  brings  clearly  out  is,  that  Goethe  was  essen- 
tially a  pantheist  at  this  period  of  his  life. 

The  faith  thus  early  adopted  was  not  a  mere  enthusiasm 
to  be  given  up  with  youth.     It  marked  the  manhood  and 
old  age  of  our  author  as  well.     His  views  were  constantly 
crystallizing  more  and  more  into  this  form.     In  his  twenty- 
sixth  year  he  procured  the  works  of  Spinoza  and  studied 
them  for  himself.     About  the  same  time  he  also  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Jacobi,  who,  like  himself  was 
jlcobSi.With    revolving,  though  never  more  than  half  believ- 
ing, the  doctrines  of  the  great  master.     Here  is 
his  record  of  what  he  then  thought,  given  in  the  account 

i  Life  and  Works  of  Goethe,  Vol.  I.,  p.  103. 


PANTHEISM.  191 

of  his  conversations  with  Jacobi.  "  Happily,  I  had  already 
prepared  if  not  fully  cultivated  myself  on  this  side,  having 
in  some  degree  appropriated  the  thoughts  and  mind  of  an 
extraordinary  man ;  and  though  my  study  of  him  .had  been 
incomplete  and  hasty,  I  was  yet  already  conscious  of  im- 
portant influences  derived  from  this  source.  This  mind, 
which  had  worked  upon  me  thus  decisively,  and  which  was 
destined  to  affect  so  deeply  my  whole  mode  of  thinking, 
was  SPINOZA.  After  looking  through  the  world  in  vain 
to  find  a  means  of  development  for  my  strange  nature,  I 
at  last  fell  upon  the  Ethics  of  this  philosopher.  Of  what 
I  read  out  of  the  work,  and  of  what  I  read  into  it,  I  can 
give  no  account.  Enough  that  I  found  in  it  a  sedative  for 
my  passions,  and  that  a  free,  wide'  view  over  the  sensible 
and  moral  world,  seemed  to  open  before  me."  1  He  de- 
clares himself  especially  pleased  with  Spinoza's  definition 
of  love  to  God,  and  of  all  love,  —  making  it  a  sentiment 
which  is  to.be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  personal  luxury,  and 
to  be  cherished  by  the  person  exercising  it  for  his  own 
sake,  with  no  reference  to  any  effect  it  may  produce  out- 
wardly. "  If  I  love  thee,  what  is  that  to  thee  ?  "  came  thus 
to  be  one  of  Goethe's  favorite  sayings.  But  the  underlying 
principle,  though  looking  very  much  like  disinterestedness 
in  one  view  of  it,  would  excuse  hatred,  or  any  other  evil 
passion,  making  it  nothing  to  any  but  ourselves  if  we 
choose  to  entertain  the  most  malicious  feelings.  It  is  in 
this  same  connection,  still  referring  to  Jacobi,  that  he  says, 
"  I  could  not  comprehend  what  he  communicated  to  m'e 
of  his  state  of  mind ;  so  much  the  less  indeed,  because  I 
could  form  no  idea  as  to  my  own.  Still,  as  he  was  far  in 

1  Autobiography,  Vol.  II.,  p.  26. 


192          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TBUTH. 

advance  of  me  in  philosophical  thought,  and  even  in  the 
study  of  Spinoza,  he  endeavored  to  guide  and  enlighten 
my  obscure  efforts."  1 

They  are  the  less  intelligent  of  the  friends  of  Goethe 
who  deny  that  there  is  pantheism  in  his  writings ;  who 
accuse  us  of  reading  it  into,  rather  than  in  his  pages.  He 

disdains  all  such  apology,  and  is  at  war  with 
bTknowu0  tnose  wno  make  it  for  him,  as  shown  by  the 
nozi?tpi  words  just  quoted.  They  may  affirm  that  his 

works  should  be  read  without  suspicion  ;  but  he, 
in  a  calm  review  of  his  life,  declares  that  Spinoza  "  affected 
deeply  his  whole  mode  of  think  jng."  As  surely  as  the 
same  fountain  cannot  send  forth  sweet  waters  and  bitter, 
so  surely  all  that  Goethe  wrote  could  be,  in  its  religious 
aspects,  only  pantheistic.  Herder  says  of  him,  alluding  to 
a  later  period  in  his  life,  "  The  only  Latin  author  ever  seen 
in  his  hand  was  Spinoza."  He  often  confessed,  while 
arguing  with  friends,  that  he  thought  it  better  to  know 
God  with  Spinoza,  than  to  believe  in  him  with  Jacobi. 
Gall's  phrenology  pleased  him,  "  because  it  connected  man 
with  nature  more  intimately  than  was  done  in  the  old 
schools,  showing  the  identity  of  all  mental  manifestation 
in  the  animal  kingdom."  "I  believe  in  God,  is  a  bountiful 
and  praiseworthy  phrase,"  he  said;  "but  to  recognize 
God  in  all  his  manifestations,  that  is  true  holiness  on 
earth."2  He  fatted  to" see  anything  "eTceptionaf "orTupeT- 
natural  in  Christ ;  his  greatness  did  not  stand  alone,  but 
was  merely  of  "  as  divine  a  kind  as  was  ever  seen  on  earth. 
If  I  am  asked  whether  it  is  in  my  nature  to  pay  him  devout 
reverence,  I  say  —  certainly.  I  bow  before  him  as  the 

1  Autobiography,  Vol.  II.,  p.  27.  2  Life  and  Works,  Vol.  II.,  p.  397. 


PANTHEISM.  193 

divine  manifestation   of  the   highest   morality. 
If  I  am  asked  whether  it  is  in  my  nature  to   JJ  ^XSJI?8 
reverence  the  sun,  I  again  say —  certainly.     For 
he  is  likewise  a  manifestation  of  the  highest  Being.     I 
adore  in  him  the  light  and  the  productive  power  of  God, 
by  which  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being."  1     Mr. 
Lewes  says,  "Goethe's  theosophy  was  that  of  Spinoza, 
modified   by  his  own  poetical  tendencies ;  it  was  not  a 
geometrical,  but  a  poetical  pantheism.     In  it  the  whole 
universe  was  conceived  as  divine ;  not  as  a  lifeless  mass, 
but  as  the  living  manifestation  of  Divine  Energy  ever 
flowing  forth  into  activity."  2     In  the  eighty-first  year  of  his 
life,  while  completing  the  second  part  of  his  Faust,  Goethe 
said,  "  What  is  all  intercourse  with  nature  if  we  merely 
occupy  ourselves  with,  individual  material  parts,  and  do 
not  feel  the  breath  of  the  spirit  which  prescribes  to  every 
part  its  direction,  and  orders  or  sanctions  every  deviation 
by  means  of  an  inherent  law  ?  "     Not  only  does  he  deify 
nature,  but  makes  man  a  part  of  it,  as  in  the  following 
words- :  "  I  had  come  to  look  upon  my  indwelling  poetic 
talent  altogether  as  nature.     The  exercise  of  this  poetic 
gift  could  indeed  be  excited   and  determined  by  circum- 
stances, but  its  most  joyful,  its  richest  action  was  spon- 
taneous, nay,  even  involuntary." 3     Here,  then,  we  have 
the  pantheistic  spontaneity ;  that  fatalism  of  Spinoza  which 
makes  necessity  essential  to  liberty.     He  found 
in  himself  a  creative  power,  acting  automatically,    JJjJ®  nece 
in  the  free  play  of  which  he  sought  to  escape 
from  all  tumults.4     This  is  the  power  which  he  described 


i  Life  and  Works,  Vol.  IT.,  pp.  397,398.  2  Ibid.,  r 

8  Autobiography,  Vol.  II.,  p.  66. 

13 


194          HALF  TEUTHS  AND 'THE  TRUTH. 

in  his  Prometheus,  a  poem  which  both  Lessing  and  Jacobi 
pronounced  thoroughly  pantheistic.  The  play  of  Egmont 
assumes  all  along  the  presence  of  a  divine  force  working 
through  human  action  in  obedience  to  its  own  fatal  ten- 
dencies. "  Man  imagines  that  he  directs  his  life,  that  he 
governs  his  actions,  when  in  fact  his  existence  is  irresistibly 
controlled  by  his  destiny."  One  of  the  most  admired  pas- 
sages in  the  whole  play  is  the  following,  in  which  the 
doctrine  of  a  free  necessity  is  taught :  "  I  see  before  me 
spirits,  who,  still  and  thoughtful,  weigh  in  ebon  scales  the 
doom  of  princes  and  of  many  thousands.  Slowly  the  beam 
moves  up  and  down  ;  deeply  the  judges  appear  to  ponder; 
at  length  one  scale  sinks,  the  other  rises,  breathed  on  by 
the  caprice  of  destiny,  and  all  is  decided."  Goethe  would 
carry  this  doctrine  of  a  fate,  working  unhindered  in  and 
through  man,  so  far  as  to  make  men  irresponsible  for  their 
religious  beliefs.  "  In  faith  everything  depends  on  the  fact 
of  believing;  what  is  believed  is  perfectly  indifferent. 
Faith  is  a  profound  sense  of  security  for  the  present  and 
future ;  and  this  assurance  springs  from  confidence  in  an 
immense,  all-powerful,  and  inscrutable  being.  The  firm- 
ness of  this  confidence  is  the  one  grand  point ;  but  what 
we  think  of  this  being  depends  on  our  other  faculties,  on 
even  our  circumstances,  and  is  wholly  indifferent."  l 

We  should  hardly  expect  a  writer,  whose  chosen  sphere 
is  poetry  and  fiction,  to  make  his  theoretical  views  very 
prominent.  We  must  look  for  them,  rather,  in  the  general 
tone  of  his  works,  and  in  the  spirit  actuating  his  favorite 
characters.  Goethe  held  that  it  is  the  business  of  litera- 
ture not  to  teach  or  mould  men,  but  to  paint  the  life  of 

i  Autobiography,  Vol.  II.,  p.  15. 


PANTHEISM.  195 

nature  and  society.     Claiming  to  be  only  an  artist  in  all 
his  writings,  he  was  careful  not  to  give  them  a  dogmatic 
or  controversial  air.     Nevertheless,  the  under-current  of 
theory  is  traceable  almost  everywhere ;   nor  is 
he    able    always-   to   keep  back  decisive   utter-   Tone  of  his 

writings. 

ances  of  his  views.  We  have  just  noticed  some 
of  these;  and  still  others  remain,  for  one  or  two  of  which 
room  shall  be  made.  In  his  Wilhelm  Meister  the  follow- 
ing words  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  Theresa,  one  of  the 
least  faulty  characters  in  the  work :  "  I  cannot  understand 
how  any  one  can  believe  that  God  speaks  to  us  through 
books  and  histories.  If  the  universe  does  not  immediately 
explain  our  connection  with  him,  if  our  own  heart  does 
not  explain  our  obligation  to  ourselves  find  others,  we  can 
scarcely  expect  to  derive  that  knowledge  from  books, 
which  seldom  do  more  than  give  names  to  ourerrois."1 
'Even  in  the  noble  poem  of  Faust,  that  grandest  creation 
of  Goethe's  genius,  he  does  not  keep  his  pantheistic  creed 
out  of  sight.  Margaret  fears  that  the  man  she  so  tenderly 
loves  is  not  a  Christian.  He  evades  her  questions,  and 
strives  to  quiet  her  mind  by  uttering  this  rhapsody :  — 

"  Tiie  All-embracer 
All-sustainer, 

Doth  he  not  embrace,  sustain 
Thee,  me,  himself? 
Lifts  not  the  heaven  its  dome  above  ? 
Doth  not  the  firm-set  earth  beneath  us  lie? 
And  beaming  tenderly  with  looks  of  love, 
Climb  not  the  everlasting  stars  on  high  ? 
Are  we  not  gazing  in  each  other's  eyes  ? 

•»  Wilhelm  Meister  (Bohn's  edition),  p.  430. 


196          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Nature's  impenetrable  agencies, — 

Are  they  not  thronging  on  thy  heart  and  brain, 

Viewless,  or  visible  to  mortal  ken, 

Around  thee  weaving  their  mysterious  reign? 

Fill  thence  thy  heart,  how  large  soe'er  it  be, 

And  in  the  feeling  when  thou'rt  wholly  blest, 

Then  call  it  what  thou  wilt,  —  Bliss  !  Heart !  Love  !  God ! 

I  have  no  name  for  it  —  'tis  feeling  all. 

Name  is  but  sound  and  smoke 

Shrouding  the  glow  of  heaven." 

This  confession  of  faith,  put  into  the  inouth  of  Faust, 
fails  to  satisfy  Margaret.  It  strengthens  the  suspicion 
that  her  lover  is  "not  a  Christian,  though  it  makes  ample 
room  for  the  religion  she  professes,  and  for  all  the  sad  in- 
discretion into  which  she  has  been  tempted.  He,  and  she, 
and  the  religious  faith  of  each,  and  the  wild  love  which 
has  drawn  them  together,  are  alike  but  forthputtings  of , 
the  divine  essence  of  all  things,  every  motion  of  which  is 
sacred,  and  to  obey  which  is  our  true  worship  for  the  time 
being,  though  external  standards  of  right  should  condemn 
the  act,  and  only  feelings  of  bitter  remorse  result  from  it. 
No  critic  has  been'bold  enough  to  claim  that  he  fully  un- 
derstands this  poem.  Yet  the  clew  to  it,  if  I  mistake  not, 
is  Goethe's  own  experience.  As  in  nearly  all  his  works, 
so  here,  only  more  profoundly,  he  deals  with  those  deep 
heart-troubles  which  his  own  wild  doings  had  occasioned, 
and  seeks  repose  in  that  pantheistic  scheme  which  makes 
all  human  conduct  both  fatal  and  divine.  In  all  his  writ- 
ings, as  in  those  now  quoted,  Goethe  claims  that  he  is 
purely  an  artist.  But  he  holds  that  it  is  the  province  of 
art  to  represent  life.  Yet  life  means  the  free  play  of  all 
the  forces  of  nature,  of  which  every  passion  or  instinct  of 


PANTHEISM.  197 

man  is  a  part,  and  the  artist  must  first  experience  what- 
soever he  would  -represent.  Nothing  in  our  humanity  is 
evil,  but  it  is  altogether  sacred  and  divine.  True  holiness 
forbids  us  to  repress  any  longing,  and  consists  in  acting 
out  to  their  utmost  all  our  impulses  and  desires.  "  The 
result  of  all  my  thoughts  and  endeavors  was  the  old  reso- 
lution to  investigate  inner  and  outer  nature,  and  to  allow 
her  to  rule  herself  in  loving  imitation.  I  sought  to  free 
myself  internally  from  all  that  was  foreign  to  me,  to  re- 
gard the  external  with  love,  and  to  allow  all  beings,  from 
man  downwards,  as  low  as  they  were  comprehensible,  to 
act  upon  me,  each  after  its  own  kind."  l 

Now,  the  impression  which  this  pantheistic  view  of  life 
and  the  function  of  the  writer  makes  on  us,  must  depend 
almost  altogether  upon  the  nature  of  the  subjects  which 
happen  to  be  treated.  The  compass  of  the  instrument  is 
without  limit;  and  the  tones  it  gives  forth  will  excite 
joy  or  pain,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  performer. 
Goethe's  theo'T  enables  him  to  charm  that  which  The  two 

J  Goethes. 

is  highest,  and  gratify  that  which  is  lowest,  in 
human  nature.     He  stands  within  a  pantheon  where  our 
noblest  and  basest  passions  may  all  be  gathered.     If  we 
complain  that  he  throws  a  halo  of  divinity  about  vice  and 
crime,  we  must  also  own  that  he  paints  virtue  in  some  of 
its  sublimer  forms.     He  makes  no  difference  in  kind  be- 
tween the  good  and  the  bad,  but  honors  them  both  alike 
in    their  turn.     There  are  two  Goethes,  and  while  listen- 
ing to  one  we  almost  doubt  the  existence  of  the  other. 
We  see  nothing  to  offend  our  moral  sense,  for  instance, 

i  Autobiography,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  469,470. 


198          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

while  we  look  at  him  in  his  scientific  studies, 
dent  of  Here  the  subject  is  one  which  hardly  admits 

of  moral  distinctions.  The  pantheist  may  deal 
with  natural  phenomena  as  justly  as  the  Christian,  though 
indulging  a  worship  of  nature  which  Christianity  forbids. 
Goethe  might  have  been  a  great  naturalist,  had  he  not 
chosen  to  be  a  poet.  As  it  is,  his  name  will  never  cense 
to  be  mentioned  with  honor  by  the  friends  of  science. 
He  was  an  observer,  rather  than  an  interrogator  of  na- 
ture ;  and  like  the  idealist  'that  he  was,  his  conclusions 
were  generally  the  starting-points  in  researches :  yet  he 
established  facts,  and  threw  out  hints,  which  h'ave  led 
on  to  some  of  the  most  marvellous  results  in  scientific 

thinking.     The  history  of  comparative  anatomy 

cannot  be  written  without  reference  to  Him. 
His  discovery  of  the  intermaxillary  bone  in  man  over- 
turned a  false  theory  in  science  which  had  prevailed  for 
centuries ;  it  went  far  to  establish  the  truth,  so  fruitful  in 
the  hands  of  his  successors,  that  the  osseous  structures  of 
all  living  animals  are  built  up  after  a  single  pattern.  He 
it  was,  too,  who  first  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
skull,  in  man  and  all  animals,  is  simply  a  terminal  verte- 
bra in  the  spinal  column,  more  or  less  expanded.  Scien- 
tific men  hailed  this  discovery,  as  they  did  the  other,,  with 
delight ;  and  from  it  sprang  the  doctrine,  now  established, 
that  all  the  bone  any  animal  has  is  back-bone,  —  either 

the  main  column  or  one  or  more  of  its  offshoots. 

In  botany. 

In  botany,  also,  Goethe's  work  on  the  Metamor- 
phoses of  Plants  may  be  said  to  have  suggested,  if  it  did 
not  originate,  what  is  now  the  distinctive  doctrine  and 
boasted  glory  of  modern  science.  He  showed,  more  or 


PANTHEISM.  199 

less  successfully,  that  all  plants  conform  to  a  single  type 
in  their  structure ;  that  in  their  development,  from  stage 
to  stage,  they  only  repeat  the  universal  type,  —  embody- 
ing it  now  imperfectly,  and  now  in  forms  which  approach 
perfection.  This  type  he  declared  to  be  the  leaf;  and  he 
proved,  by  a  valid  process,  that  even  fruits  and  flowers  are 
but  modified  leaves.  Since,  however,  many  plants  lack 
what  may  be  properly  termed  a  leaf,  some  more  general 
type  was  sought.  The  result  was  the  discovery  of  the 
cell,  which  is  common  to  animals  and  plants,  thus  laying 
the  basis  of  absolute  unity  in  nature.  To  other  men,  ad- 
vocates of  the  so-called  development  theory,  belongs  the 
credit  of  working  out  this  discovery  to  its  wonderful  re- 
sults. Yet  they  all  name  Goethe  as  the  master  who 
gave  them  the  right  clew  to  nature,  and  an  iuipulse  which 
still  carries  them  forward.  In  optics  Goethe  was  not  so 
successful.  We  have  seen  that  he  did  not  belong  to  the 
schpol  of  inductive  philosophy.  The  unity  of  nature  was 
with  him  a  transcendental  truth.  Possibly  this  was  the 
secret  of  his  opposition  to  the  Newtonian  doc- 
trine that  light  is  a  compound  substance.  Look-  - 
ing  for  unity  in  all  things,  he  assumed  that  light  must  be 
a  simple  .substance;  and  he  prpclaimed  this  theory,  un- 
fortunately, when  he  had  happened  to  observe  a  single 
fact  which  seemed  to  him  to  confirm  it.  The  theory  was 
a  mistake.  That  doctrine  of  nature  which  had  led  him 
aright  in  the  other  cases,  here  betrayed  him  into  error. 
Yet  he  fought  for  his  theory  as  long  as  he  lived.  Neither 
argument  nor  ridicule  could  move  him.  He  experimented, 
and  argued,  and  wrote,  with  a  constantly  growing  zeal. 
He  contended  that  his  doctrine  of  light  outweighed  in 


200  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

value  all  the  other  achievements  of  his  life.  The  fact  that 
certain  a-priori  thinkers,  Hegel  among  them,  inclined  to 
believe  his  theory,  enabled  him  to  bear  the  derision  of 
scientific  men  far  and  near. 

In  one  class  of  his  purely  literary  works,  too, 
wiSch8he       Goethe's  pantheism  does  not  greatly  shock  our 
advantage,     moral  convictions.     I  allude  to  those  which  are 
on  classic   subjects,  simply  reviving   the    spirit 
of  antiquity,  or  which  deal  chiefly  with  the  nobler  tenden- 
cies of  human  nature.     In  all  his  works,  even  those  which 
deify  wickedness,  we  may  choose  out  passages  admirable 
for  their  moral  tone ;  but  this  lofty  spirit  is  characteristic 
of  some,  as  it  is  not  of  others.     His  shorter 
poems.1*         poems,  if  we  sift  out   a   class,  give   charming 
utterance  to  almost  everything  bright  or  good  in 
human  life.     He  has  written  lyrics  which  might  serve  as 
vehicles  of  the  purest  emotion.     In  their  simplicity  and 
truth  to  nature,  they  are  equal  to  the  finest  models  of  the 
ancients.     His  Iphigenia  in  Tauris,  also,  is  worthy  of  his 
great  powers.     He  transports  himself  into  the  serene  air 
of  antiquity,  lives   amid  its  scenes,  breathes  its  loftiest 
spirit.     Sophocles  himself  could  not  speak  more 
in  Tauris11      nobly  of  the  pure  but  fated  daughter  of  Agamem- 
non.    The  guile  of  the  ancient  Greek  is  allowed 
to  come  out,  in  her  dealing  with  the  Taurian  king ;  and 
here  Goethe  shows  more  sympathy  with  her  fault  than  we 
could  wish.     But  in  everything  essential  to  womanhood,  as 
judged  by  the  standard  of  those  days,  —  in  filial  devotion, 
patriotism,  maidenly  innocence,  and  the  sacrificial  spirit, 
—  he  makes  her  fill  out  the  highest  ideal.     Nor 

Egmont. 

can  it  be  denied  that  there  are  passages  in  the 


PANTHEISM.  201 

play  of  Egmont  which  are  not  only  worthy  even  of  a 
Shakespeare's  genius,  but  in  which  the  sharpest  morality 
can  see  little  to  condemn.  It  is  true  that  he  violently  dis- 
torts history,  and  shows  a  fiercely  democratic  scorn  for 
social  distinctions  ;  yet  we  almost  forget  'this,  together 
with  the  doctrine  of  fatalism  running  through  the  play, 
while  we  read  the  address  to  sleep,  put  into  the  mouth  of 
the  imprisoned  Egmont ;  and  as  Clara,  who  had  hoped  to 
be  his  bride,  says  to  the  cowering  N.etherlanders,  "  I  have 
neither  arms,  nor  the  strength  of  a  man  ;  but  I  have  that 
which  ye  all  lack  —  courage  and  contempt  of  danger. 
O  that  my  breath  could  kindle  your  souls  !  That,  press- 
ing you  to  this  bosom,  I  could  arouse  and  animate  you! 
Come,  I  will  march  in  your  midst.  As  a  waving  banner, 
though  weaponless,  leads  on  a  gallant  army  of  warriors,  so 
shall  my  spirit  hover,  like  a  flame,  over  your  ranks,  while 
love  and  courage  shall  unite  the  dispersed  and  wavering 
multitude  into  a  terrible  host."  One  other  specimen  of 
this  better  class  of  Goethe's  writings  I  must  not  fail  to 
name  —  the  beautiful  poem  of  Hermann  and 

Hermann 

Dorothea.     Nothing   sweeter   can  be  found  in      mui  Doro- 
thea, 
the  whole  range  of  idyllic  or  epic  poetry.     The 

description  of  the  train  of  exiles,  of  the  meeting  of  the 
lovers,  of  the  old  landlord  and  his  wife,  of  the  village  pas- 
tor and  doctor,  of  the  garden,  the  vineyard,  the  encamp- 
ment, the  harnessing  of  the  horses,  the  finding  of  Dorothea, 
her  meeting  with  Hermann  at  the  well,  their  walk  home- 
ward in  the  evening,  and  the  betrothal,  cannot  be  surpassed 
for  vivid  and  charming  naturalness.  Yet  the  whole  story 
covers  but  a  single  day,  —  too  short  a  time,  we  feel,  for  an 
entirely  new  love  thus  to  ripen ;  and  the  noble  Dorothea 


202  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

seems  to  forget  too  easily  her  former  lover,  but  lately  slain 
in  battle,  whose  golden  pledge  she  still  wears  on  her 
finger. 

From  this  class  of  works,  in  which  the  law  of 

Wherein  his  . 

theory  spontaneity  yields  so  little  to  onend  us,  we  turn 

to  another.  Here  the  influence  of  pantheism, 
glorifying  whatever  it  touches,  fails  to  satisfy  our  moral 
convictions.  The  spontaneity  which  charmed  us  where  all 
the  tendencies  were  right,  begins  to  repel*  us  where  they 
are  wrong.  We  hold  that  man  has  a  lower  nature,  which 
is  to  be  repressed,  as  well  as  a  higher  nature,  which  may 
act  itself  out  freely.  It  is  the  consistency  of  Goethe,  as  a 
pantheist,  that  offends  us.  He  dares  to  be  true  to  his 
theory,  —  to  show  how  it  deifies  the  bad  no  less  than  the 
good.  His  Faust  has  been  mentioned.  Could 

Faust, 

anything  show  more  clearly  what  bitter  fruit 
pantheism  may  be  made  to  yield,  than  that  wonderful 
poem?  The  longing  of  man  to  gratify  even  his  lowest 
passions  is  sacred,  and  cannot  be  resisted ;  yet  the  gratifi- 
cation is  all  the  time  plunging  him  into  deeper  wretched- 
ness. The  only  escape  from  this  miserable  fate  which 
Goethe  can  suggest,  is  "  renunciation,"  —  not  the  surrender 
of  one's  self  to  the  holy  and  divine  law  of  Christ,  but  to 
this  same  foredoomed  and  tormenting  activity. 

How  indiscriminate  pantheism  is  in  dealing  with  right 

and  wrong,  may  be  seen  in  our  author's  first 

Goetz  von  ...  _.      _ .   .  . 

Beriich-         tamous    production,   Goetz    von    iDerliclnni^en. 

ingen. 

Here  the  law  of  spontaneity  is  seen  at  work  in 
political  relations.  The  personality  of  the  hero,  and  not 
public  justice,  is  made  the  basis  of  action.  He  finds  the 
state  in  his  own  impulses,  and  he  dares  to  obey  this  inward 


PANTHEISM.  203 

authority,  regardless  of  external  standards.  Goetz  is  the 
ideal  of  a  predatory  baron  of  mediaeval  times.  He  dwells 
in  his  own  castle,  surrounded  by  his  retainers,  in  German 
wilds.  To  the  Emperor  Maximilian  he  swears  allegiance ; 
yet  no  one  but  himself  is  to  say  what  that  allegiance 
requires  of  him.  He  often  shows  it  by  trampling  on  the 
imperial  commands.  With  his  fellow-barons  he  is  per- 
petually at  war.  Goethe  paints  him  as  a  champion  of  the 
weak ;  but  in  defending  some  he  wantonly  wrongs  others, 
as  the  following  case  will  show :  A  poor  tailor  owes  two 
hundred  florins,  which  he  is  unable  to  pay.  He  applies  to 
Goetz  for  help.  The  sympathies  of  the  baron  are  touched, 
and,  lacking  the  money  himself,  he  waylays  and  robs  a 
couple  of  merchants,  and  out  of  the  booty  the  tailor's 
wants  are  supplied.  Thus  is  an  impulse  of  generosity 
made  to  outweigh  justice.  The  deed  goes  with  the  flighty 
purpose,  for  the  law  of  duty  is  within.  Not  established 
principles,  but  that  subjective  law  is  the  guide,  and  it  may 
modify  outward  standards,  or  trample  on  them,  as  to  itself 
seems  good.  Many  natural  traits  in  Goetz  are  noble.  He 
values  his  reputation- for  honor  among  those  who  are  of 
his  own  class.  His  word  once  given  is  sacred.  He  hesi- 
tates to  break  his  parole  even  with  a  treacherous  "foe,  and 
at  the  risk  of  his  life.  Viewed  in  the  light  of  his  own 
personality,  and  of  his  generosity  to  those  whom  he  be- 
friends, his  conduct  is  admirable ;  but  as  judged  by  con- 
science, in  view  of  the  rights  of  society,  only  the  verdict  of 
strong  disapproval  can  be  given.  The  theory 
of  morals  which  Goethe  thus  favors  is  ably  o^monas!"7 
refuted  by  Muller,  where  he  says,  "An  action 
which  contradicts  the  moral  law  is  not  justified  by  the  mere 


204  HALF    TBUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTII. 

fact  that,  by  an  anomaly  within  an  anomaly,  it  happens 
to  proceed  not  from  selfish  but  from  good  motives  in  some 
one  particular  case.  Man  is  to  regard  the  objective  con- 
nection of  a  mode  of  action  contrary  to  the  law  with  the 
principle  of  selfishness  as  an  unconditional  veto  against 
that  action,  even  though  he  may  imagine  that  he  has  in 
some  special  case  the  most  excellent  motives  prompting 
him  thereto.  Indeed,  in  the  very  self-assertion  of  his  own 
subjectivity,  as  the  determining  and  deciding  power  in  the 
face  of  the  plain  dictates  of  the  moral  law,  there  is  an 
arrogance  side  by  side  with  noble-mindedness,  enthusiasm, 
and  what  not,  whose  real  source  is  selfishness."  1  It  is 
with  reference  to  Goethe's  doctrine  that  Miiller  thus 
argues ;  of  whom  he  says,  in  another  place,  "  There  is  cer- 
tainly a  tendency,  in  Goethe's  view  of  the  world,  to  regard 
power  and  activity  as  the  essence  of  morality."  Much 
might  be  quoted,  besides  what  appears  in  Goetz,  to  sustain 
this  charge.  The  following  lines  are  a  specimen,  in  which 
complaint  is  made  that  men  obey  external  rules  to  the 
neglect  of  the  impulses  of  their  own  natures  :  — 

"  Laws  are  a  fatal  heritage,  — 

Like  a  disease,  an  heir-loom  dread ; 
Their  curse  they  trail  from  age  to  age, 

And  furtively  abroad  they  spread. 
Reason  doth  nonsense,  good  doth  evil  grow ; 
That  thou'rt  a  grandson  is  thy  woe. 
But  of  the  law  on  man  impressed 
By  nature's  hand,  there's  ne'er  a  thought." 

We  need  not  wonder  that  Goetz  was  read  and  admired 

i  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  Book  I.,  Pt.  I.,  Chap.  III. 


PANTHEISM.  205 

by  all  Germany.  Besides  graphic  pictures  of 
the  wild  life  described,  it  fell  in  with  the  pre-  ^8  P°Pular- 
vailing  temper  of  the  times.  Goethe  is  sur- 
passed by  no  writer  for  skill  in  giving  such  food  as 
the  public  taste  may  chance  to  demand.  He  was  fully 
aware  of  this  gift,  and  in  his  Autobiography  tells  us,  at 
considerable  length,  what  pains  he  took  to  cultivate  it. 
He  watched  the  currents  of  popular  feeling ;  he  was  care- 
ful to  launch  each  new  literary  venture  on  a  favoring  tide. 
Goetz  was  written  for  the  wild,  revolutionary  spirit  which 
he  saw  surging  about  him.  It  gave  the  masses  of  his 
countrymen,  ground  under  foreign  oppressors,  just  the 
voice  of  proud  defiance  which  they  wanted.  It  pleased 
their  national  vanity,  and  made  them  feel  how  right  it  is 
to  disobey  tyrants.  Goethe  held  that  it  is  the  function  of 
literature  to  paint  life;  and  in  his  first  venture  he  had 
succeeded  so  well,  that  a  whole  people  read  in  his  words 
the  story  of  its  greatness,  its  wrongs,  its  too  long  smoth- 
ered wrath,  its  flaming  thirst  for  vengeance. 

The  evil  of  pantheism,  in  making  man  altogether  divine, 
and  putting  him  under  the  dominion  of  fate,  comes  more 
clearly  out  in  the  Sorrows  of  Werther,  Goethe's 
second  great  literary  venture.  Here  it  is  not  ?vefther°f 
superiority  to  civil  law,  but  the  right  to  dispose 
of  his  own  life,  which  the  individual  is  made  to  claim. 
The  theory  that  all  human  impulses  are  sacred,  and  a  law 
to  themselves,  is  fearlessly  carried  out.  Even  the  suicidal 
tendency  is  allowed  free  course.  Werther  was  read,  on 
its  first  appearance,  with  unbounded  enthusiasm.  It  paints 
that  experience  which  almost  all  persons  undergo  in  pass- 
ing from  childhood  to  manhood  or  womanhood.  It  enters 


206          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

fully  into  this  sentimental  period,  and  describes,  in  most 
sympathetic  words,  the  vague  unrest,  the  longings,  the 
disgusts,  from  which  so  many  youth  suffer.  Hence  its 
amazing  popularity.  Every  lovesick  suitor,  unrecognized 
genius,  discarded  sweetheart,  and  hopeless  aspirant  for 
social  position  or  public  honor,  read  it  as  the  utterance  of 
a  personal  sorrow.  If  it  had  been  a  satire,  ridiculing  their 
moodiness,  it  might  have  saved  them.  But  they  found  in 
it  no  such  purpose.  It  not  only  voiced  forth  their  heart- 
weariness  to  this  large  class  of  readers,  but  pictured  their 
unrest  as  something  divine  and  sacred.  They  were  driven 
on  by  a  fate  to  which  ready  obedience  is  always  noble. 
They  could  say,  "  The  coursers  of  time,  lashed,  as  it  were, 
by  invisible  spirits,  hurry  on  the  light  car  of  our  destiny, 
and  all  that  we  can  do  is,  in  cool  self-possession,  to  hold 
the  reins  with  a  firm  "hand,  and  to  guide  the  wheels,  now 
to  the  right,  now  to  the  left,  avoiding  a  stone  here  or  a 
precipice  there.  Whither  it  is  hurrying  who  can  tell? 
And  who,  indeed,  can  remember  the  point  from  which  it 
started  ?  " l  Their  weariness  of  life  is  not  portrayed  as  a 
weakness ;  they  are  not  instructed  to  rise  above  it.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  made  a  part  of  that  which  constitutes 
their  true  nobility.  It  is  the  play  of  the  divine  life  in 
their  human  consciousness.  "  The  resolution  to  preserve 
my  inward  nature  intact,"  says  Goethe,  "according  to  its 
peculiarities,  and  to  let  external  nature  influence  me 
according  to  its  qualities,  impelled  me  to  the  strange  ele- 
ment in  which  Werther  is  written." 2 

It  is  not  necessary  to  claim,  here,  that  Goethe  meant 
especially  to  justify  the  practice  of  suicide,  in  writing  this 

1  JEgmont.  2  Autobiography,  Vol.  I.,  p.  470. 


PANTHEISM.  207 

work.  We  may  admit  what  he  says  in  his  Auto- 
biography, that  Werther  "neither  approves  nor  ence^" 
censures,  but  develops  sentiments  and  actions 
in  their  consequences."  l  Undoubtedly  he  was  not  con- 
scious of  any  didactic  aim.  Perhaps  he  did  not  even  see 
that  Werther  grew  logically  out  of  his  philosophical 
views.  Yet  that  it  is  a  work  which  pantheism  legiti- 
mates no  one  can  deny ;  nor  can  the  influence  of  it,  on  a 
person  of  morbid  or  suicidal  temper,  be  at  all  doubtful. 
Goethe  himself  says  of  it,  "My  friends  were  led  astray  by 
my  work;  for  they  thought  that  poetry  ought  to  be 
turned  into  reality ;  that  such  a  moral  was  to  be  imitated, 
and  that,  at  any  rate,  one  ought  to  shoot  himself.  What 
had  first  happened  here  among  a  few  afterwards  took 
place  among  the  larger  public." 2  A  great  many  cases  of 
self-murder  came  to  Goethe's  notice,  in  which  the  victims 
attributed  their  rash  act  to  the  influence  of  Werther.  He 
was  overwhelmed  with  letters  from  persons  meditating 
suicide,  and  he  made  journeys  into  various  parts  of  the 
country  to  dissuade  poor  sufferers  from  such  a  step.  Yet 
his  interest  in  these  unfortunates  was  mainly  artistic.  For 
the  most  part,  he  studied  their  disease,  not  to  cure  it,  but 
for  the  sake  of  that  culture  which  he  sought  in  every 
phase  of  human  experience.  "  I  think  it  is  as  absurd  to 
say  that  a  man  who  destroys  himself  is  a  coward,  as 
to  call  a  man  a  coward  who  dies  of  a  malignant  fever," 
are  words  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Werther. 
The  morbid  yearning  for  death  is  inevitable ;  it  works  like 
a  fever  in  the  veins.  The  great  spirit  of  nature,  revealed 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  victim,  impels  him  forward  till 
the  deadly  shot  is  fired. 

*  Autobiography,  Vol.  I.,  p.  513.  «   Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  511,  512. 


208          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Goethe  confesses  that  Werther  is  mainly  himself.  The 
work  describes  a  morbid  experience  which  he  went 
through,  and  which  came  near  proving  fatal.  He  became 

ardently  attached  to  a  young  woman,  and  was 
thelfwork  made  wretched  by  learning  that  she  had  been 

already  betrothed  to  one  of  his  friends.  Her 
womanly  firmness,  in  refusing  his  attentions,  drove  him  to 
despair.  He  even  contemplated  suicide.  "  Among  a  con- 
siderable collection  of  weapons,"  says  he,  "  I  possessed  a 
handsome,  well-polished  dagger.  This  I  laid  every  night 
by  my  bed,  and  before  I  extinguished  the  candle,  I  tried 
whether  I  could  succeed  in  plunging  the  sharp  point  a 
couple  of  inches  into  my  heart." l  But  while  he  was  in 
this  state,  it  happened  that  another  young  man,  of  his 
circle,  did  commit  suicide  under  a  disappointment  precisely 
like  his  own.  This  gave  Goethe  his  chance.  He  began 
to  laugh  at  his  own  melancholy,  which  he  saw  reflected  in 
the  act  of  his  friend.  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  he 
did  not  imitate  Cervantes,  and  conceive  his  Werther  in 
the  ludicrous  vein  of  Don  Quixote ;  for  then  he  might 
have  saved  others,  while  cleansing  his  own  bosom  of  its 
perilous  stuff.  But  he  chose  rather  to  turn  his  friend's 
fate  into  sympathetic  narrative  and  glowing  eulogy.  The 
young  man  thus  suddenly  cut  off  by  his  own  hand  was 
widely  known  and  admired.  His  death,  in  the  circum- 
stances, caused  a  deep  sensation.  There  was  a  romance 
in  his  fate  which  every  one  wished  to  know.  Goethe, 
seeing  this  double  opportunity,  resolved  at  once  to  cure 
himself  by  turning  the  whole  affair  into  a  story.  Hence 
the  book,  and  the  eagerness  of  people  to  read  it.  He 

i  Autobiography,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  508,  509. 


PANTHEISM.  209 

^ 

says,  speaking  of  himself  and  his  readers,  "  Tortured  by 
unsatisfied  passions,  by  no  means  excited  from  without  to 
important  actions,  with  the  sole  prospect  that  we  must 
adhere  to  a  dull,  spiritless  citizen-life,  we  became  —  in 
gloomy  wantonness  —  attached  to  the  thought,  that  we 
could  at  all  events  quit  life  at  pleasure.  This  feeling  was 
so  general,  that  Werther  produced  its  great  effect  pre- 
cisely because  it  struck  a  chord  everywhere."1  He  saw 
the  train  laid  for  him,  that  is;  and,  quick  as  he  ever  was 
to  see  the  popular  craving,  he  applied  his  lighted  match. 
The  blaze  was  prodigious,  so  long  as  the  material  which 
fed  it  lasted.  The  glow  of  composition,  and  public  ap- 
plause, wrought  a  cure  in  his  own  case.  But  in  thus  free- 
ing himself  he  put  a  poisoned  cup  into  other  hands,  the 
deadly  effects  of  which  cannot  be  .now  computed. 

Goethe  had  made  free  use  of  the  names  of  his  best 
friends  in  Werther.  Greatly  to  their  surprise,  they  found 
a  very  undesirable  notoriety  thrust  upon  them. 

Complaints 

They  received  many  letters  01  sympathy  on  of  his 
account  of  this  usage,  and  were  obliged  to  avoid 
the  curious  gaze  of  the  public.  A  deep  stain  rested  on 
Goethe's  honor,  and  he  was  made  aware  of  their  honest 
displeasure.  Strange  to  say,  he  neither  denied  the  charge 
nor  felt  sorry  for  it.  It  seemed  to  him  to  be  no  occasion 
for  a  breach  of  friendship.  All  had  been  done  in  the 
interest  of  art,  for  which  every  one  should  be  glad  to 
suffer.  His  friends  should  regard  themselves  as  a  sacrifice 
on  that  high  altar  to  which  he  also  was  devoted.  Thus 
had  they  helped  him  in  his  wonderful  achievement ;  and 
they  were  wanting  in  artistic  spirit  if  now  disposed  to 

i  Autobiography,  Vol.  I.,  p.  507. 

14 


210  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

•* 

complain.  The  apology  did  not  suffice.  Even  if  honestly 
meant,  which  seems  hardly  possible,  it  was  taken  as  insult 
added  to  injury.  It  is  not  much  of  a  privilege  to  be  dis- 
sected alive,  even  though  some  new  truth  of  physiology 
should  thereby  be  shown.  It  was  one  thing  to  the 
painter,  and  quite  another  to  his  blooming  wife,  whom  he 
had  just  married,  when  he  exclaimed,  in  the  excess  of  his 
rapture  at  her  beauty,  "  Into  paint  will  I  grind  thee,  my 
bride." 

It  is  important  to  notice  here  one  other  of  Goethe's 

works,  the  Wilhelm  Meister,  —  which  shows  the 
Seller!1  working  of  the  law  of  spontaneity  in  social  and 

domestic  relations.  If  he  made  pantheism 
break  the  bonds  of  civil  order  in  Goetz,  and  of  probation 
itself  in  Werther,  in  Wilhelm  Meister  it  dissolves  all  fam- 
ily ties,  and  confuses  our  notions  of  intercourse  between 
man  and  man.  Great  as  Goethe  is,  and  admirable  in  the 
handling  of  noble  subjects,  we  cannot  approve,  but  must 
earnestly  condemn,  while  we  see  him  so  applying  his  the- 
ory as  to  place  vice  and  virtue  on  the  same  pedestal,  and 
throw  the  garb  of  innocency  around  crime.  His  doctrine 
of  abandonment  to  art  may  have  satisfied  his  own  con- 
science in  this ;  but  even  art  has  its  limit,  —  a  thus  far  and 
no  farther,  —  which  it  should  sacredly  heed.  If  it  be  true, 
as  Goethe  has  said,  that  the  writer  can  describe  only  what 
he  has  experienced,  no  one  can  envy  him  his  preparation 
for  Wilhelm  Meister.  But  he  gave  the  word  "  experi- 
ence "  a  broad  sense,  including  that  sympathy  with  nature, 
and  with  other  men,  which  we  feel,  and  which,  aided  by 
the  imagination,  enables  us  to  share  in  all  the  life  about 
us.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  some  of  the  events  and 


PANTHEISM.  211 

characters  in  the  work,  therefore,  and  though  much  of  it 
recalls  what  Goethe  has  told  us  of  his  own  wild  doings, 
yet  we  need  not  infer  that  he  really  went  through  such  a 
life  as  he  depicts  to  us.  He  experienced  it  artistically,  for 
the  sake  of  the  culture  which  was  his  aim.  There  is  one 
Book  in  Wilhelm  Meister,  entitled  the  Confessions  of  a 
Fair  Saint,  which  the  most  exacting  may  read  with  pleas- 
ure. The  subject  of  the  story  is  a  Moravian,  in  her 
religious  faith ;  and  Goethe,  while  tracing  the 
course  of  her  outward  and  inward  life,  makes  salntf*1 
most  charming  use  of  his  knowledge  of  the 
Moravians,  some  of  whom  were  among  his  dearest  friends. 
Yet  he  £eems  to  value  their  faith  purely  for  artistic  pur- 
poses, and  he  accounts  for  it  in.  a  wholly  natural  way,  just 
as  for  any  other  social  phenomenon,  whether  pleasing  or 
repulsive.  He  intimates  that  the  saint-like  lady,  whose 
story  he  is  telling,  is  not  altogether  of  a  sane  mind ;  tha't 
he  learned  the  facts  in  her  history  from  a  physician,  who 
had  treated  her  for  mental  disease ;  that  she  had  been 
unusually  gay  in  early  life ;  from  which  she  wa&  turned, 
by  a  bitter  disappointment  in  love,  to  seek  solace  in 
prayerful  retirement.1  And  thus  it  turns  out  at  last  that 
the  piety  of  the  Moravians  is  good  only  as  a  charming 
story  can  be  made  out  of  it ;  and  that  that  story  properly 
finds  a  place  in  the  same  volume  with  those  of  mere 
pleasure-seekers,  since  it  was  due  to  natural  causes  that 
the  subject  of  it  came  to  be  so  much  unlike  them.  There 
is  really  the  same  defect  in  her  as  in  those  characters  of 
the  work  which  most  offend  us :  it  is  the  want  of  a  clear 
ethical  basis  of  conduct,  —  which  was  not  a  fault  in 

i  Wilhelm  Meister  (Bohn's  edition),  p.  326.    Autobiography,  Vol.  I.,  p.  290. 


212          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Goethe's  eye,  as  indeed  it  could  not  be,  since  his  natural- 
ism did  not  recognize  it  as  possible.  Morality  is  but  a, 
part  of  nature ;  and  what  men  call  conscience,  and  right 
and  wrong  in  human  conduct,  are  chiefly  due  to  artificial 
rules  and  a  false  education. 

As  Goethe's  best  characters  are  not  ethically  good,  so 
his  worst  characters  are  never  artistically  bad.  Even 
Philina  is  a  creation  that  pleases  us  while  we  shut  our 
eyes  to  the  moral  law.  She  is  modelled  on  the  theory  that 
human  beings  are  like  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  may  live 
the  same  free  life  as  they.  Her  conduct  has  no  re- 

Philina. 

gard  to  external  rules  or  proprieties,  but  springs 
wholly  out  of  the  unchastened  impulses  of  her  own  heart. 
She  is  playful,  generous,  entertaining,  sympathetic,  not 
without  genius,  equal  to  any  exigency ;  yet  she  loves 
just  when  and  how  she  will,  and  acts  out  every  impulse  of 
her  nature,  with  no  compunctions  or  regrets.  She  is  a 
creature  without  a  conscience,  and  flies  from  one  pleasure 
to  another,  never  shamed  by  her  past  follies,  or  having  in 
view  any  object  but  present  enjoyment.  The  Decalogue 
and  Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  no  more  a  law  to  her,  than 
to  the  bobolink  which  sings  in  the  meadow.  Mignon,  all 
heart  and  soul,  and  whose  poor  little  body  so  trembles  in 

the  storm  of  her  own  feelings,  wins   us.     Yet 

Mignon. 

she,  too,  seems  wholly  destitute  of  an  ethical 
nature.  Her  life  is  purely  spontaneous,  the  evil  in  her 
working  as  freely  as  the  good ;  and  the  story  of  her  parent- 
age makes  that  to  be  natural  and  inevitable,  which  our 
marriage  laws  and  our  conscience  brand  as  infamous.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  nearly  all  the  characters  in  Wilhelm 
Meister,  —  Mariana,  Aurelia,  Lothario,  the  Melinas,  Serlo, 


PA.NTHEISM.  213 

Friedrich,  the    Countess.      They  have   noble   traits,  and 
some  of  them  have  many ;  yet  no  difference  is 

put  between  the  noble  and  the  base  in  them,   other  char- 
acters. 

That  which  offends  our  moral  sense  is  allowed 
the  same  freedom  as  that  which  we  approve.     The  higher 
nature  is  no  more  sacred   than   the   lower,  and  works  it- 
self out  no  more  spontaneously,  irrespective  of  established 
laws  or  maxims.     The  work  on  Elective  Affinities  is,  phil- 
osophically, a  part  of  Wilhelm  Meister ;  and  there  the  law 
of  spontaneity,  freeing  men  from  positive  restraints,  and 
giving  a  loose  rein  to  everything  in  their  nature, 
overwhelms  the  loving  Ottilie  with  a  fatal  sor-      ^ffinitXs. 
row,   destroys   the   domestic  peace  of  Edward 
and  Charlotte,  and  turns  the  most  delightful  of  friendships 
into  a  ghastly  tragedy.     If  men  and  women  were  angels, 
it  might  do  for  them  to  hold  that  all  their  "  affinities  "  are 
divinely  right,  and  should  have   free   course.      But  con-, 
scious  as  they  are  of  tendencies  which  if  indulged  would 
result   in   a   moral   and   social   chaos,  they  need   another 
jaW)  —  the  law  which  warns  them  to  put  down  the  inward 
motions  of  sin,  and  look  on  the  glory  of  Christ  till  changed 
into  the  same  image.     The  noblest  character  in  Wilhelm 
Meister,  Natalia,  has  this  fault  —  she  never  regards  vice 
from  the  ethical  point  of  view.     And  the  same  is  true  of 
Theresa.     They  follow  the  higher  tendencies  in  humanity, 
yet  seem  to  regard  as  equally  innocent  those  who  follow 
the  lower.     Wilhelm  himself,  who  has  been  one 
of  this  latter  class,  Natalia  receives   as  her  hus-  ^Yihefmand 
band,  and  adopts  his  child  as  her  own,  though 
aware  of  the  wild  life  he  has  led,  and  which  he  is  slow  to 
abandon.      Nothing  in   her   conduct  shows   that    she   is 


214          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

ruled  by  her  moral  nature.  She  is  wholly  aesthetic.  Wil- 
helm  and  his  roving  friends  are  not  objects  of  blame  to 
her.  They  have  followed  their  own  bent,  just  as  she  has 
followed  hers.  Their  doings  were  different  from  hers, 
owing  to  a  difference  in  natural  endowments  and  surround- 
ings. Even  the  Abbe,  Goethe's  ideal  of  a  clergyman,  re- 
gards the  past  life  of  Wilhelm  as  a  wholesome  schooling, 
through  which  he  was  fated  to  pass.  He  has  acted  as  he 
felt  impelled  to,  and  is  no  more  blameworthy  than  the 
robins,  who  choose  their  mates,  and  pillage,  and  sing,  in 
the  farmer's  orchard.  He  has  done  nothing  to  sorrow 
over  with  a  godly  sorrow.  Joined  to  Natalia,  whose 
stronger  nature  will  control  him,  the  verdict  of  the  Abbe 
is,  "  You  will  never  repent  nor  repeat  your  follies ;  and  this 
is  the  happiest  destiny  which  can  be  allotted  to  man." 

From  this  notice  of  the  works  of  Goethe  I  pass  to  the 

man   himself.     Did   his  pantheistic   spirit  bear 

theoretical     the  same  fruit  in  his  life  as  in  his  writings  ?     To 

views  in 

his  own  ask  the  question  is  to  answer  it,  for  his  writings 
confessedly  grew  out  of  his  life.  He  is  Wcrther, 
he  is  Faust,  he  is  WUhelm  Meister.  No  doubt  it  was  his 
wish  to  be  read  purely  as  an  artist.  But  we  cannot  dis- 
tinguish between  him  and  his  works,  as  wre  do  between 
Raphael  and  the  Transfiguration  or  Last  Supper.  He 
casts  a  roseate  light  upon  sinful  deeds.  He  makes  a  mode 
of  life  which  is  shamefully  wrong,  look  beautiful  and  in- 
viting. He  brings  vice  forward  in  such  bewitching  forms 
as  to  tempt  the  susceptible  reader.  Multitudes  have  ac- 
cepted his  works,  not  as  art,  but  as  the  true  philosophy  of 
life.  Such  they  were  to  himself.  He  held  that  his  nature 


PANTHEISM.  215 

was  wholly  divine;  that   each   one   of  his   impulses  con- 
tained its  own  law ;  that  no  external  rule  could 

His  faults 

judge  him.  This  faith  he  dared  to  practise ; 
and  we  need,  for  our  own  admonition,  to  see 
some  of  the  evils  into  which  it  led  him.  This  is  my  reply 
to  those  who  say  that  the  faults  of  Goethe  should  be 
covered  up  and  forgotten.  A  writer  in  one  of  the  English 
periodicals  seems  to  me  to  speak  justly,  where  he  says, 
"  A  certain  school  of  philosophers  has  even  become  indig- 
nant with  anybody  who  searches  into  the  moral  character 
of  the  illustrious  dent],  to  see  whether  or  not  they  con- 
formed strictly  to  the  Ten  Commandments.  Surely,  they 
hint,  men  of  genius  are  not  to  be  tested  by  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments. No  heresy,  however,  can  be  so  mischievous 
as  that  which  teaches  that  there  is,  for  different  degrees  of 
genius,  a  different  moral  code.  Moral  distinctions  are  a 
barrier  erected  by  society  between  itself  and  danger,  and 
are  assiduously  cultivated  by  educators  and  legislators  to 
that  end ;  and  this  barrier  is  nowhere  needed  more  than 
in  the  case  of  great  genius.  Great  intellectual  or  material 
strength,  unaccompanied  by  moral  sensibility,  is  an  enemy 
to  mankind's  happiness,  quite  as  much  as  a  wild  beast  is 
to  the  repose  of  an  African  village." J 

In  noticing  the  faults  of  Goethe,  which  his  views  of 
life  helped  to  develop,  that  which  was  noble  and  pleasing 
in  him  should  not  be  kept  out  of  sight.     He 
had  kind  impulses;  he   gave    liberally  of  his  Noble  traits, 
means  to  the  needy;  he  visited  the  wretched, 
and  sought  to  make  them  forget  their  trouble ;  he  aided 

i  Saturday  lleview,  1868. 


216  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

poor  students  with  his  advice  and  money ;  he  counselled 
young  authors,  gave  them  friendly  criticism,  recommended 
them  to  publishers.  Such  was  the  culture  which  he  be- 
stowed on  the  better  side  of  his  nature.  Thus  did  the' 
more  amiable  tendencies  in  him  blossom  out  and  ripen, 
under  the  law  of  spontaneous  action.  But  his  culture 
was  not  limited  to  this  sphere.  It  was  as  broad  as  his 
whole  humanity.  It  embraced  other  tendencies  not  so 
admirable.  He  had,  for  instance,  a  natural  dread  of 
hardship,  and  loved  a  quiet,  peaceful  life.  This  trait  he 
cherished ;  and  it  was  more  sacred  .to  him  than  popular 
rights,  or  the  honor  of  his  nation.  He  disliked  to  see  the 
Germans  rising  in  arms  for  their  liberty,  since  the  peaceful 
pursuit  of  culture  would  thereby  be  interrupted.  He  de- 
clared that  lie  was  unconscious  of  such  a  sentiment  as 

love  of  country.  In  trying  to  be  a  patriot,  he 
Jltdotism.  should  be  a  hypocrite.  All  governments  are 

only  artificial  devices;  one  was  just  as  bad  as 
another,  to  him  who  made  nature  his  rule;  and  all  he 
asked  of  any  was,  to  leave  him  free  to  act  as  he  pleased. 
"  When  we  have  a  place  in  the  world  where  we  can  repose 
with  our  property,"  said  he,  "  a  field  to  nourish  us,  and  a 
house  to  cover  us,  have  we  not  there  our  fatherland? 
and  have  not  thousands  upon  thousands  got  this  ?  and  do 
they  not  live  happy  in  their  limited  sphere  ?  Wherefore, 
then,  this  vain  striving  for  a  sentiment  we  neither  have 
nor  can  have,  —  a  sentiment  which  only  in  certain  nations, 
and  in  certain  periods,  is  the  result  of  many  concurrent 
circumstances."  These  words  were  addressed  to  the  peo- 
ple of  Germany,  the  object  being  to  dissuade  them  from 
making  war  on  Napoleon,  who  was  then  moving  to  over- 


PANTHEISM.  217 

throw  their  nation.  The  argument  is,  that  nature  had  not 
destined  them  for  political  dominion.  Let  them,  therefore, 
quietly  enjoy  what  happened  to  be  theirs,  indifferent  to 
the  civil  power  over  them,  which  was  no  part  of  nature. 
But  where  were  human. liberty  to-day,  we  may  well  ask, 
if  such  a  doctrine  had  swayed  the  hearts  of  all  men? 
Patriotic  Germans  have  not  yet  forgiven  Goethe  for 
accepting  the  flatteries  of  Napoleon,  and  favoring  his 
claims,  even  while  the  French  army  was  laying  their 
country  waste;  and  they  have  proved,  by  their  achieve- 
ments under  William  and  Bismarck,  securing  to  them  an 
empire,  and  placing  France  at  their  mercy,  that  they  were 
not  vain  in  their  aspirations,  while  the  peace-loving  poet 
was  utterly  mistaken.  Mr.  Lewes,  apologizing  for  Goethe 
as  he  best  can,  says,  "  Without  interest  in  political  affairs, 
profoundly  convinced  that  all  salvation  could  come  only 
through  inward  culture,  and  dreading  disturbances  mainly 
because  they  rendered  such  culture  impossible,  he  was 
emphatically  the  '  child  of  peace,'  and  could  at  no  period 
of  his  life  be  brought  to  sympathize  with  great  struggles."  l 
Every  high  sentiment  in  us  agrees  with  the  Christian 
poet,  when  he  says,  — 

"  Great  truths  are  greatly  won.     Not  found  by  chance, 

Nor  wafted  on  the  breath  of  summer-dream, 
But  grasped  in  the  dread  struggle  of  the  soul, 
Hard  buffeting  the  adverse  wind  and  stream  ; 

"  Wrung  from  the  troubled  spirit,  in  hard  hours 

Of  weakness,  solitude,  perchance  of  pain, 
They  spring  like  harvest  from  the  well-ploughed  field, 
And  the  soul  feels  it  has  not  wept  in  vain." 

i  Life  and  Works  of  Goethe,  Vol.  II.,  p.  1C8. 


218  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

But  Goethe's  method  of  culture  calls  forth  from  us  no 
such  response.  The  way  which  he  prefers  goes  around 
the  Gethsemanes  and  Calvarys  of  life.  Though  a  prince 
of  moral  disorder,  he  loves  repose,  —  that  soft  and  dreamy 
peace  which  no  outward  trouble  disturbs,  while  it  allows 
free  play  to  each  fond  desire. 

Shrinking,  as  he  thus  did,  from  all  hardship  and  pain, 
Goethe  could  not  carry  the  law  of  spontaneity  out  thor- 
oughly in   his   life.     His   own  peace   of  mind 
Snfsjstent*    obliged   nim   to   repress  some  of  his  impulses, 
theory!8        an^  to  regulate  even  those  which  he  indulged. 
He  often  held  his  natural  sympathy  in  check ; 
says,  "  I   carefully   avoided   seeing   Schiller,  Herder,  the 
Duchess  Amalia,  in  the  coffin."     The  feeling  of  indigna- 

• 

tion  which  springs  in  every  heart  at  the  sight  of  wrong- 
doing he  sought  to  overcome.  "  He  who  hates  vices  hates 
men,"  was  one  of  his  strange  maxims.  We  are  to  love  all 
things  just  as  they  are,  however  bad.  Nothing  should 
excite  our  hatred  or  pity,  but  only  our  joy.  "  He  who 
rightly  knows  that  all  things  follow  from  the  necessity  of 
the  divine  nature,  and  come  to  pass  in  conformity  with 
the  eternal  laws  of  nature,  will  never  meet  with  anything 
worthy  of  hatred  or  contempt ;  neither  will  he  commis- 
erate any  one." J  Thus  taught  Spinoza,  and  Goethe  aimed 
to  live  out  the  precept.  He  made  new  friends,  forsook 
old  friends,  moved  from  place  to  place,  both, gave  and 
broke  the  tenderest  pledges,  as  his  plans  or  present  com- 
fort seemed  to  require.  "The  most  lovable  heart,"  he 
said,  "  is  that  which  loves  most  readily ;  and  that  which 
e::?ily  loves  also  easily  forgets."  At  one  time  he  was 

i  Spinoza's  Ethics,  Tart  IV.,  Prop.  I.,  Scholium. 


PANTHEISM.  219 

attracted  to  the  society  of  the  Moravians ;  but  finding  their 
piety  irksome  to  him,  and  their  morals  too  strict  for  his 
habits  of  life,  he  withdrew  from  them.1  "It  had  become 
a  standing  custom  with  me,  whenever  I  read  missionary 
intelligence  to  Fraiilein  von  Klettenberg,  which  she  was 
very  fond  of  hearing,  to  take  the  part  of  the  pagans 
against  the  missionaries,  and  praise  their  old  condition  as 
preferable  to  their  new  one."  He  went  through  a  special 
course  of  training,  that  he  might  school  himself  to  bear, 
without  pain,  unpleasant  sights'  and  sounds.  He  attended 
surgical  lectures,  with  the  view,  he  says,  of  freeing  him- 
self "  from  all  apprehension  as  to  repulsive  things.  I  have 
actually  succeeded  so  far  that  nothing  of  this  kind  could 
ever  put  me  out  of  my  self-possession.  But  I  sought  to 
steel  myself,  not  only  against  these  impressions  of  the 
senses,  but  also  against  the  infections  of  the  imagination. 
And  in  this  also  I  went  so  far,  that  when  a  desire  came 
over  me  once  more  to  feel  the  pleasing  shudder  of  youth, 
I  could  scarcely  force  it  in  any  degree." 2  It  will  be  seen, 
therefore,  that  his  repression  of  nature  did  not  grow  out 
of  a  high  moral  purpose,  but  from  the  wish  to  avoid  pain. 
He  did  not  always  repress  what  was  evil  in  him,  but 
often  that  which  was  good,  and  thus  tried  to  give  the  evil 
unhindered  sway.  It  was  not  as  a  Christian,  but  as  an 
epicurean,  that  he  sought  to  regulate  the  law  of  spontane- 
ous action.  He  had  not  the  courage  to  carry  out,  on  all 
sides,  the  doctrine  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Faust: 

"The  scope  of  all  my  powers  henceforth  be  this, 
To  bare  my  breast  to  every  pang,  —  to  know  . 
In  my  heart's  core  all  human  weal  and  woe, 

i  Autobiography,  Vol.  II.,  p.  33.  2  i^d.,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  321,  322. 


220  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

To  grasp  in  thought  the  lofty  and  the  deep, 
Men's  various  fortunes  on  my  breast  to  heap, 
To  theirs  dilate  my  individual  mind, 
And  share  at  length  the  shipwreck  of  mankind." 

It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  Goethe  was 
little  incon-  not  even  more  inconsistent  with  his  theory  than 
we  have  now  seen.  If  he  had  put  down  some 
of  the  impulses  which  he  freely  indulged,  his  life  might 
not  have  been,  in  some  of  its  aspects,  the  sad  picture 
which  it  is.  No  respectable  critic,  however  friendly  to 
him,  has  attempted  to  justify  his  domestic  and  social  life. 
Even  Dr.  Hedge,  in  his  Prose  Writers  of  Germany,  says, 
"  Unquestionably  he  was  no  saint.  His  wildest  admirers 
have  sought  no  place  for  him  in  the  Christian  calendar. 
In  reading  Goethe  we  do  not  feel,  as  when  reading  Dante 
or  Milton,  that  we  are  conversing  with  a  pure  and  lofty 
spirit."  His  habit  of  trifling  with  maidenly  but  susceptible 
hearts  was  formed  in  early  youth,  and  he  defended  the 
habit  on  purely  subjective  grounds,  contending  that  the 
usages  of  society  were  artificial,  and  had  no  right  to  inter- 
fere with  the  action  of  nature.  He  refused  all  legal  sanc- 
tion to  his  marriage,  except  so  far  as  might  be  necessary 
for  the  entailment  of  his  name  and  wealth.  His  view  of 
the  position  and  rights  of  a  wife  are  given  where  he  says, 
"A  wife  should  manage  her  household  properly,  and  not 
censure  every  little  fancy  of  her  husband,  but  always 
depend  on  his  return."  l  It  is  certain  that  this  large  indul- 
gence of  husbands,  which  he  thus  recommends  to  every 
wife,  he  took  for  granted  in  his  own.  Her  'life  had  but 
little  acknowledged  union  with  his.  He  was  seldom  seen 

i  Wilhelm  Meister,  p.  431. 


PANTHEISM.  221 

with  her  in  the  company  of  other  persons.  Her  sad  life 
wore  on  in  seclusion.  Other  "  fancies  "  were  continually 
leading  him  abroad  ;  and  into  his  house  came  the  gay  and 
aspiring,  almost  daily,  to  enjoy  caresses  which  .he  denied 
to  her.  This  manner  of  life  caused  Goethe  no  self- 
reproaches,  for  it  grew  logically  out  of  his  philosophical 
views.  It  was  not  wrong,  but  right,  he  would  claim.  It 
was  the  spirit  of  the  universe  coming  to  consciousness  in 
him,  and  to  let  it  act  freely  was  obedience  to  the  highest 
law.  All  the  impulses  of  humanity  are  divine,  was  the 
major  premise  of  his  conduct ;  and  he  carried  the  reasoning 
out  into  his  practice,  in  the  direction  now  shown,  even  to 
old  age.  This  appears  in  the  story  of  Bettine,  who  came 
to  Weimar  while  yet  a  child.  Goethe's  fame  attracted  her. 
She  felt  the  spell  of  his  intellectual  greatness ;  to  be  his 
friend  was  the  summit  of  her  ambition.  He  saw  to  what 
her  enthusiasm  was  carrying  her,  yet  encouraged  her  love 
of  his  now  superannuated  person.  He  luxuriated  in  her 
affection  for  him,  neither  checking  it  nor  seeking  to  elevate 
and  chasten  it,  though  it  was  wearing  away  the  founda- 
tions of  her  moral  nature.  No  sigh  escaped  him,  but  he 
smiled  only  the  more  blandly,  while  her  brilliant  but  un- 
schooled nature  was  breaking  from  its  early  moorings,  and 
drifting  far  out  from  the  lights  of  Christian  faith,  where 
the  storm  which  no  one  rules  beat  down  upon  her.  It  was 
Mrs.  Browning,  with  her  pure  woman's  heart,  who  had 
pity  on  the  young  girl,  loving  so  unwisely,  and  who,  in 
her  poem  bewailing  Bettine's  fate,  exclaims,  — 

"  The  bird  thy  childhood's  playing 
Sent  onward  o'er  the  sea,  — 
Thy  dove  of  hope,  —  came  back  to  thee 

Without  a  leaf  !     Art  laying 


222  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

Its  cold  wing  no  sun  can  dry, 
Still  in  thy  bosom  secretly." 

It  is  said  that  something  should  be  pardoned, 

Allowance       .  .     .          .  . 

to  be  made     in  Goethe  s  hie,  to  his  artistic  spirit.     His  adven- 

to  art. 

tures  were  studies  preparatory  to  the  exercise 
of  his  literary  function.  He  needed  to  experience  all  those 
human  feelings  which  he  would  describe.  He  held  the 
maxim  of  the  ancient  artist,  who  said  that  one  cannot 
paint  a  horse  without  first  becoming  a  horse.  It  would  be 
a  relief  to  know  that  some  of  Goethe's  doings  were  for 
this  object,  and  not  simply  for  the  gratification  of  his 
natural  desires  ;  that  they  were  experienced  only  in  sym- 
pathy, by  the  help  of  his  imagination,  though  told  as  facts 
in  his  history.  If  we  could  grant  this,  then  we  should  use 
it  to  explain  what  is  noblest  in  his  conduct  as  well  as  that 
which  offends  us.  Thus  his  whole  life  becomes  purely 
histrionic.  When  he  is  generous,  when  he  gives  to  the 
poor  and  visits  the  wretched,  just  as  when  he  trifles  with 
the  too  confiding,  he  is  not  moved  by  a  benevolent  pur- 
pose, but  is  simply  gathering  material  for  the  next  story, 
play,  or  poem.  He  must  become  a  suicide,  in  order  to 
write  Werther ;  must  go  into  the  woods,  and  live  like  a 
robber,  in  order  to  do  the  character  of  Goetz  full  justice ; 
must  become  a  stage-manager,  and  know  actors  and 
actresses  intimately,  in  order  to  describe  their  rivalries, 
and  jealousies,  and  quarrels.  This  artistic  zeal  made  him 
partial  to  all  the  amusements  of  the  theatre.  He  wrote 
many  plays  for  the  court-theatre  at  Weimar,  and  he  aided 
in  them  as  an  actor,  not  only  at  home,  but  in  the  country 
around.  The  impression  all  along,  in  Wilhelm  Meister,  is 
that  men  may  get  their  best  schooling  in  the  experiences 


PANTHEISM.  223 

of  a  theatrical  career.  Not  in  the  sense  of  Shakespeare, 
but  literally  and  seriously,  he  would  have  all  the  world  a 
stage,  and  men  and  women  merely  players.  Even  though 
this  be  not  the  general  rule,  he  at  least  is  an  artist,  whose 
business  is  to  paint  life  in  all  its  phases;  and  what  he 
would  paint,  he  must  somehow  first  make  a  part  of  him- 
self. 

But  we  join  issue  with  Goethe  on  this  defini- 

The  obliga- 
tion.    It  is  not  the  function  of  art,  but  of  history    t'o?8  of  the 

and  criticism,  to  deal  with  actual  life.  He  who 
portrays  life  to  us  should  discriminate  between  the  bad 
and  good ;  should  make  his  representations  honor  the 
right  always,  and  condemn  whatsoever  is  wrong.  Thus 
only  is  he  a  trustworthy  teacher,  guarding  us  against  evil, 
and  begetting  in  us  a  love  of  what  is  pure,  and  true,  and 
of  good  report.  The  ideal  realm  is  that  which  belongs  to 
art,  and  its  moral  purpose  should  be  the  same  as  that  of 
criticism  and  history,  —  the  ennobling  of  our  better  nature. 
It  is  therefore  bound  to  avoid  all  subjects  which  are  low, 
vile,  or  degrading  in  their  nature,  and  to  give  us  only  such 
representations  as  shall  appeal  to  our  upward  and  godlike 
tendencies.  Here  it  was  that  Goethe  sadly  failed.  He 
puts  before  his  readers,  painted  in  colors  wholly  sympa- 
thetic, scenes  which  stimulate  what  is  most  grovelling  in 
human  nature.  To  his  deep  dishonor  it  must  be  said,  that 
he  does  not  teach  us  to  abhor  the  vices  of  society ;  he  does 
not  limit  his  studies  to  what  is  worthy  of  imitation  in  life ; 
he  does  not  take  what  is  best  in  man,  lift  it  up  into  the 
ideal  realm,  make  it  the  material  of  his  conceptions,  and 
clothe  it  with  especial  charms,  so  as  to  draw  us  away  from 
all  that  is  vile  and  sinful,  towards  that  life  of  pure  and  holy 


224          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TEUTH. 

love  which  is  the  glory  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits.  The 
artist  is  false  to  his  great  mission,  and  commits  one  of  the 
darkest  of  crimes  when  he  puts  us  face  to  face  with  that 
which  stimulates  the  evil  in  our  natures.  It  is  his  sacred 
duty  to  put  all  such  temptations  behind  our  backs  ;  to  make 
us  see  the  gates  of  the  city  of  love,  and  admire  the  beauty 
of  its  shining  towers,  and  hear  the  bells  ringing  out  their 
joyful  peals,  till  our  souls  shall  long  to  be  there. 

•The  subjective  theory  of  morals,  growing  out 
quat?dthe-  °f  pantheism,  and  adopted  by  Goethe  in  his 
tu?e°f  writings  and  practice,  is  a  half •  truth.  That 

which  is  absolutely  right  in  us,  making  our  life 
so  far  forth  one  with  the  life  of  God,  is  a  law  unto  itself. 
It  should  be  allowed  to  act  itself  out  freely.  But  even  in 
its  spontaneous  action,  it  does  not  cease  to  be  subject  to 
authority.  It  recognizes  the  moral  law  as  its  counterpart, 
as  the  outward  embodiment  of  its  own  ideal.  This  law, 
awful  as  Sinai  and  lovely  as  Tabor,  is  the  externization 
of  itself.  Subject  as  it  is  to  disturbances,  to  the  stormy 
nights  which  so  often  issue  from  our  lower  nature,  this 
higher  nature  in  us  is  glad  to  sail  by  the  light  of  the  con- 
stellations ;  those  eternal  stars  of  truth,  hung  out  by  the 
good  God  in  our  moral  heavens,  and  ever  reflected  in  the 
still  depths  of  conscience,  which  hold  us  to  our  course 
through  all  the  Euroclydons  of  life,  while  we  watch  for 
their  unchanging  signals.  The  true  culture  of  man  is 
therefore  not  single,  as  Goethe  held,  but  a  twofold  process. 
It  is  daily  a  death  and  a  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
There  is  evil  in  us  to  be  crucified,  in  order  that  what  is 
best  in  us  may  live.  Only  as  our  man  which  is  earthly 
dies,  can  our  man  which  is  heavenly  be  renewed.  No  one 


PANTHEISM.  225 

but  Christ,  who  is  our  divine  ideal,  has  ever  taught  us  a 
doctrine  of  culture  adequate  to  our  case.  It  is  as  we  bear 
*about  daily  his  dying,  that  his  life  also  is  manifest  in  our 
mortal  body.  „  That  which  is  from  beneath  must  decrease, 
while  that  which  is  from  above  takes  increase.  That  is 
sown  in  weakness,  while  this  is  raised  in  power ;  that  is 
sown  a  natural  body,  while  this  is  raised  a  spiritual  body ; 
that  is  sown  in  dishonor,  while  this  is  raised  in  glory. 
Who  has  not  many  times  sat  upon  the  rocks  at  eventide, 
and  watched  the  ships  sailing  away  into  the  setting  sun  ? 
Before  them  all  was  bright,  behind  them  their  own  dark 
shadows  lay  upon  -the  water.  Some  of  their  sails  were  so 
set  as  to  be  pure  and  glistering  in  the  light,  others  so 
turned  away  from  it  as  to  show  a  darkened  surface ;  yet 
all  were  alike  helping  to  bear  the  ships  onward.  Such 
is  the  process,  not  single  but  twofold  in  aspect,  by  which 
man  achieves  his  noblest  culture. 

"  There  was  a  soul,  one  eve  autumnal,  sailing 

Beyond  the  earth's  dark  bars, 
Towards  the  land  of  sunsets  never  paling, 

Towards  heaven's  sea  of  stars. 
Behind  there  was  a  wake  of  billows  tossing, 

Before  a  glory  lay ; 
0  happy  soul !  with  all  sail  set,  just  crossing 

Into  the  far  away  ; 

The  gloom  and  gleam,  the  calmness  and  the  strife, 
Were  death  before  thee,  and  behind  thee  life. 

"  And  as  that  soul  went  onward,  sweetly  speeding 

Unto  its  home  and  light, 
Repentance  made  it  sorrowful  exceeding, 
Faith  made  it  wondrous  bright; 

15 


226          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Eepentance  dark  with  shadowy  recollections 

And  longings  unsufficed, 
Faith  white  and  pure  with  sunniest  affections 

Full  from  the  face  of  Christ. 
But  both  across  the  sun-besilvered  tide 
Helped  to  the  haven  where  the  heart  would  ride. 


LECTURE  VL 

PANTHEISM  IN  THE  FORM  OF  HERO-WORSHIP. 

THE  topic  of  this  lecture  suggests  the  name  of  Thomas 
Carlyle   more   naturally,  perhaps,  than  that   of 
any  other  man.     Whether  a  pantheist  or  not,      sentative 
it  is  sure  that  the  tendency  to  deify  and  wor- 
ship  great   men  has   in  him   an   earnest   advocate,  —  its 
most  conspicuous  and  eloquent  champion  in  modern  times. 
The  subject  could  not  be  adequately  treated  .apart  from  his 
writings  ;  and  it  is  in  this  relation,  and  with  this  purpose, 
that  he  is  here  introduced.     I  do  not  propose  to  consider 
Carlyle,  so  much  as  a  certain  doctrine  which  he  represents. 
As  in  the  case  of  Goethe,  it  is  not  the  man  himself,  but 
the  speculative  views  embodied  in  his  writings,  with  which 
I  am  primarily  concerned.     In  this  undertaking  I  shall 
make  large  use  of  the  works  of  Carlyle,  quoting  them  ver- 
batim as  often   as  I   conveniently  can.1      This    certainly 
will  be  much  fairer  to  him,  and  much  more  satis- 
factory, I  hope,  to  those  who   would  know  his     JJeatmentf 
views,  than  any  account  of  him  which   I  might 
give  purely  in  my  own  words.     Nor  does  it  seem  to  me 

1  To  save  space  and  repetitions,  detached  passages,  both  in  this  lecture  and 
others,  have  been  sometimes  brought  together  as  one  quotation,  and  single 
words  here  and  there  dropped  or  changed;  but  in  no  case  has  this  liberty  been 
taken  where  it  would  do  violence  to  the  author's  meaning. 


228          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

that  I  need  to  make  any  apology  for  this  method  of  treat- 
ment ;  since  every  author  knows  how  much  easier  it  is  to 
write  about  a  person  than  to  present  him  faithfully  in  his 
own  language,  —  especially  if  the  work  be  candid  and  con- 
scientious, and  so  done  as  to  preserve  the  progress  and 
consecutiveness  of  the  thought,  at  all  of  which  I  shall 
steadily  aim. 

The  name  of  Thomas  Carlyle  holds  a  place 
Cariyie's       second  to  but  few  in  the  English  literature  of 

position  in 

utneratsure  ^  ^ast  generation.  Notwithstanding  the  cry  of 
outlandishness  raised  against  his  style,  whether 
by  intelligent  critics  or  stupid  Philistinism,  he  yet  has  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  mother  tongue;  and,  when  he 
chooses  to  do  so,  he  can  write  with  a  classic  elegance  and 
power  of  expression  which  our  best  authors  might  well 
covet.  His  disregard  of  accepted  rules  and  standards  is 
not  due  to  ignorance,  so  much  as  to  his  moods  of  mind. 
He  knows  what  he  is  doing,  quite  as  well  as  any  of  his 
critics,  when  he  casts  contempt  upon  the  great  models  in 
composition ;  and  a  close  scrutiny  of  his  most  character- 
istic coinage  of  words  and  phrases  often  reveals  an  amaz- 
ing fitness  and  vitality  in  them.  Though  unconventional 
to  the  verge  of  lawlessness,  his  sentences  show  themselves 
the  true  servants  of  his  ideas  and  feelings.  Whatever  vio- 
lence they  may  do  to  the  laws  of  composition,  it  is  clear 
that  he  utters  them  unaffectedly,  eager  only  to  be  relieved 
of  the  host  of  thoughts  in  him  which  struggle  for  expres- 
sion. These  idiosyncrasies  of  style  are  the  more  re- 
markable in  view  of  his  fondness  for  Goethe,  whose 
writings  are  among  the  best  models  of  the 
y  e'  literary  art.  It  was  in  admiration  of  this  Ger- 


PANTHEISM.  229 

man  master,  indeed,  that  Carlyle's  career  as  a  man  of  let- 
ters began.  His  education  had  been  planned  with  a  view 
to  the  clerical  office  in  the  Scotch  church.  But  he  recoiled 
from  what  seemed  to  him  the  narrowing  duties  of  that 
office,  when  he  had  once  drunk  at  the  stream  of  free 
thought,  then  bursting  forth  so  boldly  on  the  continent. 
The  draught  intoxicated  him.  He  felt  that  he  had  found 
the  door  to  a  new  world ;  a  fresh  and  living  world,  where 
intellectual  freedom  was  the  only  law,  not  that  stale  and 
conventional  world  to  which  he  had  been  used.  He  re- 
solved to  explore  this  foreign  literature,  beside  which  the 
standard  literature  at  home  seemed  to  him  so  dead.  And 
he  threw  himself  into  the  undertaking  with  great  spirit ; 
too  full  of  enthusiasm  to  consider  whether  it  was  all  truth 
which  he  followed,  or  perhaps  judging  that  that  could  not 
be  false  which  so  exhilarated  and  emboldened  him. 

Such  were  the  impulse  and  first  joyous  experience,  which 
led  Carlyle,  yet  a  young  man,  to  yield  himself  up  to  the 
influence  of  Goethe.  The  decisive  step  was  taken.  His 
mind  came  into  communication  with  the  pantheism  of  the 
day,  and,  in  all  its  future  workings,  embodied  more  or 
less  of  the  spirit  of  that  error.  Not  that  he  lost  his  indi- 
viduality. His  genius  was  too  original  and  persistent  for 
that.  He  is  always  himself,  though  freely  appropriating 
other  men's  thoughts,  and  though  his  style  was  greatly 
affected  by  his  German  studies.  His  philosophizing,  if 
such  it  may  be  called,  reminds  us  of  the  crystals  we  some- 
times see  in  nature,  —  cast  in  the  mould  which  their  inhe-. 
rent  laws  make  for  them,  but  stained  or  clouded  by  the 
infusion  of  foreign  matter.  If  the  genius  of  Goethe  was 
mainly  aesthetic,  that  of  Carlyle  inclined  to  be  ethical. 


230  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

One  is  as  true  to  the  Scotch  bias  as  the  other  to  the 
German.  By  instinct  Carlyle  was  a  moralist; 
dency?  '  and  therefore,  to  whatever  matter  he  applied 
himself,  instead  of  treating  it  simply  as  an  artist, 
he  handled  it  in  the  spirit  of  a  critic  and  reformer.  If 
Goethe  held  that  it  was  the  whole  function  of  literature  to 
paint  life,  Carlyle  even  more  stoutly  held  that  literature 
should  concern  itself  with  the  relations  of  life,  and  their 
adjustment  between  man  and  man.  It  was  with  this 
reformatory  bent  of  mind  that  he  set  out  in  his  literary 
career.  And  we  are  now  to  see  whither  it  carried  him 
after  he  had  broken  loose  from  his  early  moorings ;  when 
he  no  more  turned  to  the  Father  of  his  spirit  for  guidance 
into  all  truth,  but  committed  himself  to  the  stream  of  his 
own  reasonings  and  intuitions. 

Though  fundamentally  at  one  with  Goethe,  and  making 
Goethe's  works  his  main  study  for  years,  he  yet  chose  an 
entirely  different  sphere  in  which  to  labor.  The  German 
was  devoted  to  poetry,  science,  and  fiction,  and  to  society ; 
the  Scotchman  gave  himself  mainly  to  politics,  —  the  term 
"  politics  "  being  used  in  its  highest  and  broadest  sense,  in- 
clusive of  all  that  enters  into  questions  of  statesmanship 
and  government.  Nor  has  this  political  reformer,  so  far 
as  appears,  fallen  into  those  more  vicious  habits  which 
Goethe  contracted  while  yielding  to  the  aesthetic  bent  of 
his  genius.  That  Carlyle  regarded  political  reform  as  the 
field  in  which  his  life-work  was  cast,  is  clear  from 
A  political  the  very  titles  of  his  chief  works  :  the  French 

reformer.  • 

Revolution,  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  Crom- 
well, Frederick  the  Great,  and  New  Essays  in  which  he 
discusses  Model  Prisons,  Downing  Street,  the  Stump-Ora- 


PANTHEISM.  231 

tor,  Parliaments,  and  kindred  subjects.  The  Heroes  and 
Hero-worship,  though  a  course  of  lectures  ostensibly  lit- 
erary, yet  betrays  the  fact  all  along,  that  he  subordinated 
literature  to  questions  of  government.  The  only  works  in 
which  this  aim  does  not  stand  prominent  are  Sartor  Re- 
sartus,  and  some  of  his  earlier  essays,  written  before  he 
had  fairly  settled  himself  to  his  more  especial  purpose. 
His  Life  of  John  Sterling  may  also  be  an  exception ;  but 
this  was  written  not  of  choice"  so  much  as  from  a  regard 
for  the  wishes  of  his  lost  friend.  His  criticisms  of  the 
American  war  under  Lincoln,  and  of  the  measures  for 
national  reconstruction  which  followed  it;  his  interest  in 
General  Eyre  while  trampling  on  the  rights  of  England's 
West  India  subjects;  and  his  utterances  respecting  the 
extension  of  the  franchise  among  his  own  countrymen, 
show,  however  much  to  his  discredit,  that  his  ruling  pas- 
sion is  political.  As  the  opinions  and  sympathies  of  an 
old  man,  they  also  confirm  the  proverb,  that  the  ruling 
passion  is  strong  in  death. 

Let  us  go  back  a  little  now,  and  look  at  the  foundation 
on  which  Carlyle  built  up  the  temple  of  his :  thought.  I 
have  not  found  in  his  writings  any  explicit  avowal  of  pan- 
theism as  the  philosophical  and  religious  basis  of  his  spec- 
ulations. He  has,  indeed,  so  late  as  the  year  1870,  de- 
nied the  charge  of  pantheism,  so  often  brought 
against  him.  Yet  his  way  of  doing  it  shows 
that  he  cares  little  about  the  matter,  in  any 
case ;  nor  does  he  even  define  what  he  means  by  pan- 
theism ?  Very  likely  he  could  in  truth  repel  many  of  the 
charges  of  his  critics ;  yet  he  leaves  the  question  so  inde- 


232          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

terminate,  and  his  opponents  are  so  numerous  and  per- 
sistent, that  the  case  must  be  settled  by  a  careful  study  of 
his  writings,  rather  than  by  any  single  denials  or  avowals. 
Categorical  answers  are  not  to  be  trusted,  where  the  ques- 
tioner and  the  person  questioned  have  different  notions  of 
the  subject-matter  between  them.  The  intelligent  stu- 
dent knows  pantheism  by  its  looks,  wherever  found,  and 
whether  falsely  named  or  nameless :  it  need  not  be  labelled 
for  his  information,  any  more  than  a  plant  in  order  to  be 
known  by  the  botanist.  Carlyle  was  totally  indifferent  to 
names,  which  he  looked  on  as  only  the  changing  "  clothes," 
and  no  -  part  of  the  permanent  essence  of  philosophy. 
That  he  was  perfectly  content  to  be  known  as  a  pantheist 
is  clear  from  the  fact  that  he  has  never  seriously,  but  only 
now  and  then  satirically  resented  the  charge.  It  is  a  point 
which  he  always  managed  to  evade  when  urged  by  his 
friends,  favoring  them  with  replies  too  flippant,  or  too 
scornfully  brief,  to  be  at  all  satisfactory.  It  should  be 
said,  however,  that  his  ambiguity  here,  as  in  many  other 
places,  may  have  been  due  to  a  certain  grim  humor,  which 
he  loved  to  indulge  on  all  occasions.  He  rather  enjoyed 
the  impression  of  his  friends  that  he  was  a  sort  of  reckless 
and  impious  Titan,  —  holding  theories  utterly  subversive 
of  the  present  order  of  society,  though  angrily  refusing  to 
tell  just  what  they  were.  But  pure  philosophy  was  not 
his  province.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  any  imme- 
diate knowledge  of  Spinozism,  or  of  the  leading 

Not  in  the         ...  .•,,-, 

dogmatic       thinkers  who  revived  the  doctrines  of  Spinoza 

in  Germany.     He  imbibed  the  essence  of  that 

philosophy  rather,  as  it  was  filtered  through  the  works  of 

a  more  popular  class  of  authors.     He  drank  it  in  espe- 


PANTHEISM.  233 

cially  from  the  works  of  Goethe ;  nor  was  its  influence 
upon  him  weakened,  but  rather  strengthened,  by  his  famil- 
iarity with  the  writings  of  Heyne,  Werner,  Richter,  Nova- 
lis,  Lessing.  He  is  not  a  champion  of  pantheism,  nor  even 
a  teacher  of  it,  except  incidentally.  His  distinctive  work 
is  in  the  field  of  political  reform.  Yet  everywhere  we 
may  detect,  and  that  quite  easily,  the  pantheistic  infil- 
tration. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  following  view  of  the  history  of 
the  human  race  in  Sartor  Resartas :  "  Generation  after 
generation  takes  to  itself  the  form  of  a  body; 

Proofs  of  a 

and  forth-issuing  from  Cimmerian  night,  on  pantheistic 
heaven's  mission,  APPEARS.  "What  force  and 
fire  are  in  each  he  expends :  one  grinding  in  the  mill  of 
industry ;  one,  hunter-like,  climbing  the  giddy  Alpine 
heights  of  science ;  one  madly  dashed  in  pieces  on  the 
rocks  of  strife,  in  war  with  his  fellow:  —  and  then  the 
heaven-sent  is  recalled ;  his  earthly  vesture  falls  away,  and 
soon  even  to  sense  becomes  a  vanished  shadow.  Thus, 
like  some  wild-flaming,  wild-thundering  train  of  heaven's 
artillery  does  this  mysterious  MANKIND  thunder  and  flame, 
in  long-drawn,  quick-succeeding  grandeur,  through  the 
unknown  deep.  Thus,  like  a  God-created,  fire-breathing 
spirit-host,  we  emerge  from  the  inane ;  haste  storrrifully 
across  the  astonished  earth  ;  then  plunge  again  into  the 
inane.  But  whence  ?  O  Heaven,  whither  ?  Sense  knows 
not;  faith  knows  not;  only  that  it  is  through 
mystery  to  mystery,  from  God  and  to  God."1  history?  °f 
Now,  this  is  a  most  vivid  description  of  the  col- 
lective life  of  man,  it  must  be  owned,  whether  correct  or 

i  Sartor  Resartua  (Harpers,  New  York,  1858),  pp.  208,  209. 


234         HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTH. 

not;  though  it  has  too  many  double  words,  and  shows 
more  passion  than  is  desirable.  But  the  spirit  and  tone 
of  it  cannot  be  mistaken.  It  is  thoroughly  morbid,  and 
manifestly  pantheistic  in  its  morbidness.  Nothing  in 
Werther  could  teach  more  clearly  that  our  true  wisdom  is 
in  committing  suicide.  We  may  admit,  as  Carlyle,  no 
doubt,  thought  while  writing  the  passage,  that  it  is 
"grand;"  but  we  are  constrained  to  add  that  it  is 
"  gloomy  and  peculiar."  One  would  not  like  a  friend,  in 
a  melancholy  state  of  mind,  to  read  much  of  that  sort  of 
sentimentalizing.  It  makes  us  "  such  stuff  as  dreams  are 
made  of,"  in  a  sense  not  intended  by  Shakespeare.  Its 
God,  the  beginning  and  enrf  of  the  whole  "  appearance,"  is 
not  a  living  Father,  whose  hand  we  may  grasp  in  swreet 
hope  when  we  step  off  the  stage,  but  simply  the  "  inane,"  — 
the  pantheist's  blank  and  dark  immensity.  That  human 
history,  considered  as  a  single  movement,  is  divine  so  far 
as  it  has  any  reality,  seems  to  be  assumed  in  the  follow- 
ing :  "  The  life-tree  Igdrasil,  wide-waving,  many-toned,  has 
its  roots  down  deep  in  the  death-kingdoms,  amongst  the 
oldest  dead  dust  of  men,  and  with  its  boughs  reaches 
always  beyond  the  stars ;  and  in  all  times  and  places  it  is 
one  and  the  same  life-tree." *  There  is  but  one  life,  that 
is,  by  which  all  the  parts  of  the  universal  frame  are  for- 
ever filled. 

But  Carlyle  finds  this  one  absolute  essence  in  the  indi- 
vidual man,  as  really  as  in  the  race.     "  The  highest  God 
dwells  visibly  in  that  mystic,  unfathomable  visi- 
bility  which  calls  itself  Jon  the  earth.     'Bend- 
ing before  men,'   says  Novalis,  'is  a  reverence 

1  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism  (Harpers,  1858),  p.  36. 


PANTHEISM.  235 

done  to  this  revelation  in  the  flesh.  We  touch  Heaven 
when  we  lay  our  hand  on  a  human  body.' "  Speaking  of 
the  man  of  letters,  Carlyle  says,  "  His  life  is  a  piece  of  the 
everlasting  heart  of  nature  herself:  all  men's  life  is,  —  but 
the  weak  many  know  not  the  fact,  and  are  untrue  to  it, 
in  most  times ;  the  strong  few  are  strong,  heroic,  peren- 
nial, because  it  cannot  be  hidden  from  them.  The  un- 
speakable divine  significance,  full  of  wonder  and  terror, 
that  lies  in  the  being  of  every  man,  of  every  thing,  is  the 
presence  of  God  who  makes  every  man  and  thing." 2  "I 
find  it  written,  within,  and  not  without,  the  order  of  na- 
ture ;  and  that  all  things,  like  all  men,  are  blood-relations 
to  one  another." 3  "  In  this  point  of  view  I  consider  that, 
for  the  last  hundred  years,  by  far  the  notablest  of  all  lit- 
erary men  is  Goethe.  To  that  man  there  was  given  what 
we  may  call  a  life  in  the  divine  idea  of  the  world ;  vision 
of  the  inward  divine  mystery ;  and  strangely,  out  of  his 
books,  the  world  rises  imaged  once  more  as  godlike,  the 
workmanship  and  temple  of  God." 4 

In  his  views  of  nature,  too,  of  which  he  thus  makes 
every  man  a  part,  Carlyle  shows  the  same  pantheistic 
habit  of  thought.  "  All  nature  and  life  are  but  one  gar- 
ment, a  living  garment,  woven  and  ever  a-weaving  in  the 
loom  of  time."5  "Then  sawest  thou  that  this  fair  Uni- 
verse, were  it  in  the  meanest  province  thereof, 

Views  of 

is  in  very  deed  the  star-domed  city  of  God;  nature  pan- 
theistic. 

that  through  every  star,  through  every  grass- 
Past,  Present,  and  Chartism  (Harpers,  1858),  p.  123. 
Hero-worship  (John  Wiley,  New  York,  1859),  pp.  139,  140. 
New  Essays  (Phillips,  Sampson  &  Co.,  Boston,  1855),  p.  416. 
Hero-worship,  p,  HI. 
Sartor  Resartus  (Harpers,  New  York,  1858),  p.  158. 


236  HALF    TRUTHS    AJsTD    THE    TRUTH. 

blade,  and  most  through  every  living  soul,  the  glory  of  a 
present  God  still  beams.  But  nature,  which  is  the  time- 
vesture  of  God,  and  reveals  him  to  the  wise,  hides  him 
from  the  foolish."1  .  "Beautiful,  nay  solemn  was  the  sud- 
den aspect  to  the  wanderer.  He  gazed  over  those  stupen- 
dous masses  with  wonder,  almost  with  longing  desire';  and 
never  till  this  hour  had  he  known  nature,  that  she  was  one, 
that  she  was  his  mother  and  divine.  And  as  the  ruddy  glow 
was  fading  into  clearness  in  the  sky,  and  the  sun  had  now 
departed,  a  murmur  of  eternity  and  immensity,  of  death  and 
life,  stole  through  his  soul ;  and  he  felt  as  if  death  and  life 
were  one,  as  if  the  earth  were  not  dead,  as  if  the  spirit  of 
the  earth  had  its  throne  in  that  splendor,  and  his  own  spirit 
were  therewith  holding  communion." 2  "  The  world  of 
nature  for  every  man  is  the  fantasy  of  himself;  this  world 
is  the  multiplex  'image  of  his  own  dream.'"3  "  There  is 
one  God,  in  and  over  all.  He  is  the  reality.  We  and  all 
things  are  but  the  shadow  of  him ;  a  transitory  garment 
veiling  the  eternal  splendor." 4  "  This  so  solid-looking 
material  world  is  at  bottom  in  very  deed  nothing ;  is  a 
visible  and  tactual  manifestation  of  God's  power  and  pres- 
ence, a  shadow  hung  out  by  him  on  the  bosom  of  the  void 
infinite  ;  nothing  more."  5  "  What  is  the  mystery  of  the 
universe  —  Goethe's  '  open  secret,'  seen  almost  by  none  ? 
that  divine  mystery  which  lies  everywhere  in  all  beings, 
from  the  starry  sky  to  the  grass  of  the  field,  which  is  but  the 
vesture,  the  embodiment  that  renders  it  visible?  This 
divine  mystery  is,  in  all  times  and  places ;  veritably  is. 
In  most  times  and  places  it  is  greatly  overlooked,  and  the 

1  Sartor  Resartus,  p.  207.  2  Ibid.,  p.  120. 

a  Hero-worship,  p.  23.  *  Ibid.,  p.  50.  e  ibid.,  p.  62. 


*  PANTHEISM.  237 

universe,  definable  always  in  one  or  the  other  dialect,  as 
the  realized  thought  of  God,  is  considered  trivial,  inert, 
commonplace  matter,  —  as  if,  says  the  satirist,  it  were  a 
dead  thing,  which  some  upholsterer  had  put  together."  l 
"  Creation  lies  before  us  like  a  glorious  rainbow ;  but  the 
sun  that  made  it  lies  behind  us,  hidden  from  us.  Then,  in 
that  strange  dream,  how  we  clutch  at  shadows  as  if  they 
were  substances ;  and  sleep  deepest  while  fancying  our- 
selves most  awake.  Which  of  your  philosophical  systems 
is  other  than  a  dream  theorem  ;  a  net  quotient  confidently 
given  out,  whose  divisor  and  dividend  are  both  unknown? 
What  are  all  your  national  wars,  with  their  Moscow- 
retreats,  and  sanguinary  hate-filled  revolutions,  but  the 
somnambulism  of  uneasy  sleepers  ?  This  dreaming,  this 
somnambulism  is  what  we  on  earth  call  life ;  wherein  the 
most  indeed  undoubtingly  wander,  as  if  they  knew  right 
hand  from  left ;  yet  they  only  are  wise  who  know  that 
they  know  nothing." 2 

If  Carlyle  means  what  these  latter  sentences  plainly 
imply,  then  why,  in  the  name  of  that  wisdom  which  he  so 
strangely  defines,  has  he  spent  all  his  life  trying  to  tell 
kingdoms,  and  republics,  and  society  in  general,  how  much 
he  knows  about  their  true  nature  and  the  best  ways  of 
perpetuating  them  ?  Some  of  his  voluminous  advice  is  of 
so  absurd  a  nature  as  to  go  no  little  way  towards  estab- 
lishing his  theory  of  universal  nescience,  though  it  certainly 
excludes  him  from  his  own  category  of  the  "  wise,"  who, 
knowing  that  they  know  nothing,  are  precluded  from  any 
•  attempt  to  teach.  I  will  give  but  one  other  quotation 
under  this  head,  showing  that  Carlyle,  in  full  sympathy 

1  Hero-worship,  p.  72.  2  Sartor  Ilcsartus,  p.  41. 


238  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

with  pantheism,  looked  on  all  things  as  making  up  a  single 
and  living  whole.  "  Detached,  separated  !  I  say  there  is 
no  such  separation :  nothing  hitherto  was  ever  stranded, 
cast  aside ;  but  all,  were  it  only  a  withered  leaf,  works 
together  with  all ; .  is  borne  forward  on  the  bottomless, 
shoreless  flood  of  action,  and  lives  through  perpetual  meta- 
morphoses. The  withered  leaf  is  not  dead  and  lost ;  there 
are  forces  in  and  around  it,  though  working  in  inverse 
order,  else  how  could  it  rot  ?  Despise  not  the  rag  from 
which  man  makes  paper,  or  the  litter  from  which  the  earth 
makes  corn.  Rightly  viewed,  no  meanest  object  is  insig- 
nificant ;  all  objects  are  as  windows,  through  which  the 
philosophic  eye  looks  into  infinitude  itself."  1 

The  fatalism  of  the  pantheist,  as  well  as  his  unreality 
of  history,  of  the  individual,  and  of  nature,  appears  in 

Carlyle.  He  speaks  of  "the  ring  of  necessity 
SneSty!  whereby  we  all  are  begirt;"  and  adds,  "happy 

he  for  whom  a  kind  heavenly  sun  brightens  it 
into  a  ring  of  duty,  and  plays  round  it  with  beautiful  pris- 
matic diffractions ;  yet  ever,  as  basis  and  as  bourn  for  all 
our  being,  it  is  there." 2  Carlyle  shows  a  pantheistic  habit, 
too,  in  his  treatment  of  the  subjects  of  space  and  time. 
He  does  not  regard  them  as  objective  realities  in  Ins  meta- 
physics, but  as  purely  subjective  notions,  which  the  mind 
imagines  in  certain  processes  of  thinking.  "  Think  well," 

says  he,  "  thou  too  wilt  find  that  space  is  but  a 
andTime.  mode  of  our  human  sense,  so  likewise  time ; 

there  is  no  space  and  no  time  :  we  are  we  know 
not  what,  —  light-sparkles  floating  in  the  aether  of  Deity." 3 
"  Is  the  past  annihilated,  then,  or  only  past  ?  is  the  future 

1  Sartor  Resartus,  p.  56.  2  Ibid.,  p.  78.  3  Ibid.,  p.  42. 


PANTHEISM.  239 

non-extant,  or  only  future  ?  Those  mystic  faculties  of 
thine,  memory  and  hope,  may  answer :  already,  through 
those  mystic  avenues,  thou  the  earth-blinded  summonest 
both  past  and  future,  and  communest  with  them,  though 
as  yet  darkly,  and  with  mute  beckonings.  The  curtains 
of  yesterday  drop  down,  the  curtains  of  to-morrow 
roll  up ;  but  yesterday  and  to-morrow  both  are.  Pierce 
through  the  time  element,  glance  into  the  eternal.  Believe 
what  thou  finclest  written  in  the  sanctuaries  of  man's  soul, 
even  as  all  thinkers,  in  all  ages,  have  devoutly  read  it 
there  :  that  time  and  space  are  not  God,  but  creations  of 
God ;  that  with  God  as  it  is  a  universal  Here,  so  it  is  an 
everlasting  Now."  l  He  even  presses  the  language  of  the 
Scriptures  into  his  service,  in  stating  this  doctrine.  "  Well 
sung  the  Hebrew  Psalmist :  '  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the 
morning,  and  dwrell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea,  there 
thou  art  with  me.'  Thou,  too,  O  cultivated  reader,  who 
probably  art  no  Psalmist,  but  a  prosaist,  knowing  God  only 
by  tradition,  knowest  thou  any  corner  of  the  world  where 
FORCE  is  not  ? "  And  so,  not  only  do  the  Scriptures 
agree  with  Carlyle,  but  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
no  living  Father  of  men  —  only  an  almighty  and  omni- 
present force. 

But  let  us  follow  Carlyle  a  little  into  the  proper 
domain  of  religion.     Here  he  applies  the  panthe-      JSJrg!onB 
istic    solvent  to  all  forms  of  faith,  recognizing 
no  supernatural  inspiration,  but  finding  one  and  the  same 
divinity,  whether  in  Paganism,  Christianity,  or  Mohamme- 
danism.    He  puts  the  Bible  in  the  same  category  with  the 
Koran,  quoting  with  approbation  the  saying  of  Novalis, 

1  Sartor  Rcsartus,  p.  205.  2  ibid.,  p.  55. 


240  HALF    TEUTHS    AND    TftE    TKUTII. 

that  "  the  highest  problem  of  literature  is  the  writing  of  a 
Bible."  l  "  To  each  nation  its  believed  history  is  its  Bible : 
not  in  Judea  alone,  or  Hellas  and  Latium,  but  in  all  lands 
and  all  times." 2  "  All  history  is  an  inarticulate  Bible ; 

and,  in  a  dim  and  inarticulate  manner,  reveals 

the  divine  appearances  in  this  lower  world." 3 
"  Is  there  no  '  inspiration,'  then,  but  an  ancient  Jewish, 
Greekish,  Roman  one  ?  Quench  not,  I  advise  thee,  the 
monitions  of  that  thrice-sacred  gospel,  holier  than  all  Gos- 
pels, which  dwells  in  each  man."  4  "  Moses  and  the  Jews 
did  not  make  God's  laws  ;  no,  indeed ;  they  did  not  even 
read  them  in  a  way  that  has  been  final  or  satisfactory  to 
me.  In  several  respects  I  find  said  reading  decidedly  bad, 
and  will  not,  in  any  wise,  think  of  adopting  it."  5  This  is 
quite  dogmatic,  it  must  be  confessed,  for  the  man  who  only 
knows  that  he  knows  nothing;  and  it  is  probable  that,  on 
the  whole,  the  Christian  world  will  persist  in  preferring 
Moses  to  Carlyle.  Still  further  defining  his  ideas  of  re- 
ligion, our  author  says,  "  The  first  man  who,  looking  with 
open  soul  on  this  august  heaven  and  earth,  this  beautiful 

and  awful,  which  we  name  nature,  universe,  and 
wS"ipf  such  like,  the  essence  of  which  remains  forever 

unnamable ;  he  who  first,  gazing  on  this,  fell 
on  his  knees  awe-struck,  in  silence  as  likeliest,  —  he,  driven 
by  inner  necessity,  had  done  a  thing  which  all  thoughtful 
hearts  saw  straightway  to  be  an  expressive  and  altogether 
adoptable  thing."  6  Here,  then,  we  have  all  religion  de- 
fined as  essentially  nature-worship  ;  and  it  is  rendered,  not 

i  New  Essays,  p.  358.  2  Ibid.,  p.  410. 

s  Ibid.,  p.  412.  *  Ibid.,  p.  386.  e  Ibid.,  p.  419. 

6  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  129. 


PANTHEISM.  241 

of  choice,  but  spontaneously  and  of  necessity.  To  the 
same  effect  Carlyle  says,  "  The  essence  of  the  Scandi- 
navian, as  indeed  of  all  pagan  mythologies,  we  found  to 
be  recognition  of  the  divineness  of  nature ;  sincere  com- 
munion of  man  with  the  mysterious  invisible  powers 
visibly  seen  at  work  in  the  world  around  him."  *  Again 
he  says  that  condemnable  idolatry  is  insincere  idolatry.  Be- 
cause we  all  admire  sincerity,  and  abhor  hypocrisy,  he 
seems  to  think  that  he  carries  his  point  in  saying,  "  Ma- 
homet's creed  we  call  a  kind  of  Christianity; 
and  really,  if  we  look  at  the  wild  rapt  earnest-  the  only 

essential. 

ness  with  which  it  was  believed  and  laid  to 
heart,  I  should  say  a  better  kind  than  that  of  those  miser- 
able Syrian  sects,  with  their  vain  janglings  about  Homo- 
ousion  and  Homoiousion,  the  head  full  of  worthless  noise, 
the  heart  empty  and  dead." 2  But  does  our  author  mean 
to  say  that  those  "  Syrian  sects  "  are  not  one  thing,  and  Chris- 
tianity quite  another  ?  We  grant  him  the  right  to  define 
all  religion  as  at  bottom  a  pantheistic  sentiment,  if  he 
chooses  to  do  so ;  but  why  should  one  who  prides  himself 
on  his  love  of  truth,  and  who  has  so  •  much  intellectual 
modesty  withal, .  resort  to  the  stale  trick  of  confounding 
Christian  truth  with  the  men  who  hold  its  forms  while 
denying  its  power  ?  That  he  believes  in  the  divinity  of 
all  religions  alike,  is  plain  from  the  following :  "  Are  not 
aU  true  men  soldiers  of  the  same  army  ?  All  fashions  of 
arms,  the  Arab  turban  and  swift  scimeter,  Thor's  strong 
hammer  smiting  down  Jotuns,  shall  be  welcome.  Luther's 
battle-voice,  Dante's  march-melody,  all  genuine  things  are 
with  us,  not  against  us.  We  are  all  under  one  captain, 

i  Hero-worship,  p.  27,  2  Jbid.,  p.  50. 

16 


242  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TliUTH. 

soldiers  of  the  same  host." 1  In  his  famous  Inaugural 
Address,  spoken  before  a  university  audience,  using  words 
often  quoted  since,  Carlyle  defines  religion  as  "  reverence 
for  what  is  below  us."  This  definition,  so  thoroughly 
pantheistic,  is  not  original  with  him,  however, 
Accepts  kut  is  taken  entire  from  Goethe.  Here  are 

vrOGTIlc  8 

reu"ion.n°f  Goethe's  words;  and  no  words  could  more 
clearly  show  the  position  of  both  master  and 
pupil,  as  also  their  theory  that  Christianity  even,  so  far  as 
true,  is  but  a  form  of  pantheism :  "  But  now  we  have  to 
speak  of  the  third  religion,  grounded  on  reverence  for  what 
is  under  us.  This  we  name  the  Christian,  as  in  the  Chris- 
tian religion  such  a  temper  is  most  distinctly  manifested : 
it  is  a  last  step  to  which  mankind  were  destined  and  fitted 
to  attain.  But  what  a  task  was  it  not  only  to  be  patient 
with  the  earth,  and  let  it  lie  beneath  us,  we  appealing  to  a 
higher  birthplace ;  but  also  to  recognize  humility  and 
poverty,  mockery  and  despite,  disgrace  and  wretchedness, 
suffering  and  death,  as  divine ;  nay,  even  to  look  on  sin 
and  crime  as  not  hinderances,  but  to  honor  and  love  them 
as  furtherances  of»what  is  holy."  2  Here  we  are  let  into  the 
innermost  secret  of  Goethe's  glorification  of  vice  and  crime  ; 
into  the  innermost  secret  of  Carlyle's  eulogies  of  American 
Slavery,  the  Southern  Rebellion,  and  the  oppressive  meas- 
ures of  General  Eyre.  Carlyle  honors  and  loves  these 
embodiments  of  wickedness.  They  are  manifestations  of 
the  divine  essence  of  all  things  ;  feeble  manifestations,  so 
that  he  has  the  keenest  religious  faculties  who  is  able  to 
recognize  them  as  truly  divine.  The  amount  of  religion 

1  Hero-worship,  p.  108. 

2  Essays  (Phillips,  Sampson,  &  Co.,  Boston,  1858),  p.  87. 


PANTHEISM.  243 

in  a  man,  that  is,  is  greater  as  the  object  of  his  worship  is 
less  manifestly  worthy.     To  call  evil  good,  and  darkness 
light,  and  adore  them  tis  such,  is  the  sublimest  act  of  man's 
religious  nature.     We   do  not  touch  the  high- 
water  mark  of  our  manhood,  till  we  believe  in 
the  divinity  of  crime,  and  are  able  to  say  unto  sin  itself, 
"  Thou  art  my  God." 

Turning  now  from  these  quotations,  which  seem  to  me 
to  make  clear  the  pantheistic  spirit  of  Carlyle, 
let  us  see  how  that  spirit  flows  up,  and  out,  into      pantheism 
all  his  writings  on  political  history  and  reform,      practical8 
giving  them  their  attitude,  their  shape,  their  tone. 

It  is  in  assailing  the  corrupt  governments  of  Europe, 
and  lampooning  their  stupid  conventionalisms,  that  Carlyle 
shows  what  real  strength  is  in  him.  Herein,  as 

.  ,     ^        ,        ,          ,  'PI-  Makes  him 

with  (jroethe,  lay  the  secret  01  his  power  over  revoiutiou- 
the  masses  of  the  people.  He  seemed  to  them 
to  be  their  champion  while,  with  eloquent  and  merciless 
sarcasm,  he  lashed  and  laughed  to  scorn  their  oppressive 
rulers.  We  wonder  that  a  writer  who  finds  divineness  in 
everything,  and  who  worships  what  is  below  him,  should 
so  denounce  the  European  monarchies ;  but  he  is  not  the 
first  instance  of  a  pantheist  crossing  his  own  track  in  the 
heat  of  controversy.  He  forgets  his  theory  in  eagerness 
to  assail  "  the  powers  that  be  ; "  like  that  Universalist  in 
the  loyal  army,  who  believed  in  Hell  as  a  military  neces- 
sity, while  any  rebels  were  abroad.  Yet  Carlyle  would 
probably  say  that  he  is  philosophically  consistent ;  for  he 
does  not  regard  what  he  assails  as  any  real  thing.  In- 
anities, shams,  unrealities,  simulacra,  are  the  names  he 
loves  most  to  apply  to  the  objects  of  his  scorn. 


244  HALF    TRUTH'S    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

Take,  for  example,  his  work  on  the  French  Revolution, 

which  I  think  the  ablest  and  humanest  of  all  his 
oUrSon.  works.  It  was  written  in  the  freshness  of  his 

years,  before  the  pantheistic  spirit  had  soured 
into  misanthropy.  His  pity  for  the  royal  family,  for  the 
heirs  of  great  estates,  and  especially  for  the  beautiful  and 
pious  Marie  Antoinette,  is  genuine  and  touching.  His 
whole  soul  seems  to  mourn  on  account  of  the  woes  about 
to  overwhelm  the  French  government.  Yet  those  woes 
must  come;  for  the  Bourbon  dynasty,  notwithstanding 
the  merits  of  individual  supporters,  has  become  a  sham, 

a  cheat,  an  unreality.  It  is  no  longer  a  revela- 
the  Vault  of  tion  of  God.  That  divinity  which  is  the  essence 

of  all  things  has  gone  out  of  it;  therefore  it 
is  untrue,  without  use  or  meaning,  and  cannot  but 
pass  away  —  if  not  quietly,  then  with  much  smoke  and 
noise.  "Before  those  five-and-twenty  laboring  millions 
could  get  that  haggardness  of  face,  in  a  nation  calling 
itself  Christian,  and  calling  man  the  brother  of  man,  what 
unspeakable,  nigh  infinite  dishonesty  (of  seeming,  not 
being)  in  all  manner  of  rulers,  and  appointed  watchers, 
temporal  and  spiritual,  must  there  not,  through  long  ages, 
have  gone  on  accumulating!  It  will  accumulate:  more- 
over it  will  reach  a  head ;  for  the  first  of  all  gospels  is  this, 
that  a  lie  cannot  endure  forever." l  In  this  strain  it  is  that 
he  speaks  of  all  governments  which  have  become  feeble, 
and  which  the  oppressed  masses  dare  defy.  They  are  not, 
but  only  seem  to  be ;  are  not  powers  any  longer,  but 
merely  the  simulacra  of  departed  strength.  He  contrasts 

»  French  Revolution  (Harpers,  1861),  Vol.  I.,  p.  35. 


PANTHEISM.  245 

these  enfeebled  governments,  which  rest  on  the  blind  loy- 
alty of  the  people,  with  those  of  a  pagan  age,  sighing  for  a 
return  of  the  times  in  which  Thor  and  Odin  were  wor- 
shipped. "  Whnt  a  world  was  that  old  sunk  one,"  he  says, 
"real  governors  governing  it;  shams  not  yet  recognized 
as  tolerable  in  it." l  And  he  adds,  "  A  truer  time  will 
come  for  the  nations  ;  authorities  based  on  truth,  and  on 
the  silent  or  spoken  worship  of  human  nobleness,  will 
again  get  themselves  established." 2  "  This  is  a  reflection 
sad  but  important  to  the  governments  now  fallen  anarchic, 
that  they  had  not  spiritual  talent  enough.  They 
were  not  wise  enough ;  the  virtue,  heroism,  in- 
tellect,  or  by  whatever  other  synonymes  we  des-  {^j^v* 
ignate  it,  was  not  adequate." 3  The  trouble  with  cr"ment- 
these  governments,  according  to  Carlyle,  is  that  they  are 
based  on  law  and  compacts,  not  on  the  inherent  and 
acknowledge  ability  of  the  men  administering  them.  .  And 
it  will  be  noticed  that  by  "ability"  he  means  sheer 
strength  to  govern,  of  whatever  sort.  He  sees  only  "syn- 
onymes," where  the  Christian  moralist  is  wont  to  make  dis- 
tinctions. Anything  is  right  which  is  able.  "It  grows 
late  in  the  day,"  he  says,  "  with  constitutionalism ;  and  it 
is  time  for  rulers  to  look  up  from  their  Delolme.  If  the 
constitutional  man  will  take  the  old  Delolme-Bentham 
•  spectacles  off  his  nose,  and  look  abroad  into  the  fact  itself 
with  such  eyes  as  he  rnay  have,  I  consider  he  will  find  that 
reform  in  matters  social  does  not  now  mean,  as  he  has 
long  sleepily  fancied,  reform  in  Parliament  alone,  or 
chiefly,  or  perhaps  at  all.  My  alarming  message  to 

i  New  Essays,  p.  358.  2  Ibid.,  p.  183.  s  Ibid.,  p.  162. 


246  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

him  is,  that  the  thing  we  vitally  need  is  not  a  more  and 
more  perfectly  elected  Parliament,  but  some  reality  of  a 
ruling  sovereign  to  preside  over  Parliament.".1  Carlyle 
would  not  do  away  altogether  with  constitutional  bodies, 
as  they  at  present  exist.  They  have  ceased  to  have  any 
power  to  govern.  Yet  the  state  of  popular  feeling  gets 
itself  spoken  through  them ;  and  thus  the  strong  ruler, 
whom  the  people  fear,  is  able  to  adapt  his  measures  to  the 
times.  "Of  representative  assemblies  may  not  this  be 
said?  that  contending  parties  do  thereby  ascertain  one 
another's  strength.  They  fight  there,  since  fight  they 
must,  by  petition,  Parliamentary  eloquence,  not  by  sword, 
bayonet  and  bursts  of  military  cannon.  Why  do  men 
fight  at  all,  if  it  be  not  that  they  are  yet  unac- 
Function  of  quainted  with  one  another's  strength,  and  must 

representa-  * 

tive  assem-     fight  and  ascertain  it  ?     Knowing  that  thou  art 

ulit?8. 

stronger,  that  thou  canst  compel  me,  I  will  sub- 
mit to  thee  :  unless  I  chance  to  prefer  extermination,  and 
slightly  circuitous  suicide,  there  is  no  other  course  for  me. 
•That  in  England,  by  public  meetings,  petitions,  elections, 
leading  articles,  and  the  jangling  hubbub  of  tongue-fence 
which  perpetually  goes  on  everywhere  in  that  country, 
people  nscertnin  one  another's  strength ;  and  the  most 
obstinate  House  of  Lords  has  to  give  in  before  it  come  to 
cannonading  and  guillotinement :  this  is  a  saving  charac- 
teristic of  England."2  Once  more,  speaking  of  representa- 
tive government  in  Europe,  he  says,  to  the  same  effect, 
"  Beyond  doubt  it  will  be  useful  and  indispensable,  for  the 
king  or  governor  to  know  what  the  mass  of  men  think  on 
questions  legislative  and  administrative ;  what  they  will 

*  New  Essays,  p.  297.  2  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  364. 


PANTHEISM.  247 

assent  to  willingly,  what  unwillingly ;  what  they  will  re- 
sist with  superficial  discontents,  what  with  obstinate 
determination,  with  riot,  perhaps  with  armed  rebellion. 
No  governor  can  otherwise  go  along  with  clear  illumina- 
tion of  his  path,  however  plain  the  load-star  and  ulterior 
goal  to  him ;  but  at  every  step  must  be  liable,  to  fall  into 
the  ditch ;  to  awaken  he  knows  not  what  sleeping  nests 
of  hornets,  what  sleeping  dog-kennels  better  to  be  avoided. 
By  all  manner  of  means  let  the  governor  inform  himself  of 
all  this.  To  which  end  Parliaments,  free  presses,  and 
such  like,  are  excellent ;  they  keep  the  governor  aware  of 
what  the  people,  wisely  or  foolishly,  think."  l  An  Ameri- 
can senator  in  the  year  1861,  representing  a  state  which 
had  just  seceded  from  the  Union,  and  defending  the  right 
of  his  state  thus  to  do  regardless  of  any  authority  of  the 
Congress,  rose  amid  his  fellow-senators,  and  said,  "  This 
assembly  is  not  an  authoritative  body  to  me,  but  only 
a  very  respectable  public  meeting."  Precisely  like  that 
rebellious  senator's  view;*  seems  to  be  Carlyle's  theory  of 
assemblies  of  men,  met  together  by  election  of  the  people, 
and  under  a  written  constitution,  to  make  laws  for  the 
regulation  and  government  of  their  country. 

We  have  now  seen  the  secret  of  Carlyle's  favor  with 
the  struggling  masses  in  Europe.     As  against 
the  constituted  authorities  there,  he  seems  to 
lead  them  in  their  arduous  struggle.     But  he  is 
mocking   them.      If   he   "keeps    the   word   of 
promise  to  their  ear,"  he  "breaks  it  to  their 
hopo,"     This   fact  has   shown  itself  even  in  his  tirades 
against  constitutional  monarchy ;  but  it  needs  to  be  more 

1  New  Essays,  p.  306. 


248          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

distinctly  noticed.  The  inference  was  that  one  who  so 
lashed  existing  monarchies  must  be  a  lover  of  democ- 
racies. Vain  inference!  When  he  glorifies  rebellion,  in 
the  case  of  the  French  led  by  Mirabeau,  of  the  English 
led  by  Cromwell,  and  of  the  Americans  led  by  Samuel 
Adams,  it  is  not  because  he  believes  in  the  liberty  they 
are  seeking,  but  because  he  can  use  -them  for  the  time 
being  against  the  more  immediate  object  of  his  attack. 
These  rebellions,  though  having  but  little  divinity  in 
themselves,  show  that  the  divinity  is  all  gone  out  of  the 
governments  assailed.  What  could  be  nobler  than  his 
eulogy  of  the  first,  settlers  of  Massachusetts  ?  "  Hail  to 
thee,  poor  little  ship  Mayflower,  of  Delft-Haven;  poor, 

common-looking  ship,  hired  by  common  char- 
tte  PUgrfata. ter  party  for  coined  dollars ;  calked  with  mean 

oakum  and  tar;  provisioned  with  vulgarest  bis- 
cuit and  bacon  ;  —  yet  what  ship  Argo,  or  miraculous  epic 
ship  built  by  the  sea-gods,  was  other  than  a  foolish  bum- 
barge  in  comparison !  Golden  fleeces  or  the  like  these 
sailed  for,  with  or  without  effect ;  thou,  little  Mayflower, 
hadst  in  thee  a  veritable  Promethean  spark ;  the  life-spark 
of  the  largest  nation  on  earth.  They  went  seeking  leave 
to  hear  sermon  in  their  own  method,  these  Mayflower 
Puritans;  a  most  indispensable  search ;  and  yet,  like  Saul 
the  son  of  Kish,  seeking  a  small  thing  they  found  this, 
unexpected  great  thing !  Honor  to  the  brave  and  true ; 
Puritanism  tnev  verily,  we  say,  carry  fire  from  heaven,  and 
Jfaui?mhpS"  a  power  which  themselves  dream  not  of.  Let 
together.  ftjj  men  ^nor  Puritanism,  since  God  so  hon- 
ored it.  Islam,  with  its  heart-felt  'Allah  Akbar,'  was 
it  not  honored  ?  There  is  but  one  thing  without 


PANTHEISM.  249 

honor;  smitten  with  eternal  barrenness  and  inability  to  do 
or  be;  insincerity,  unbelief.  He  who  believes  no  thing, 
who  believes  only  the  shows  cf  things,  is  not  in  relation 
with  nature  and  fact  at  all.  Nature  denies  him;  orders 
him  at  his  earliest  convenience  to  disappear.  Let  him 
disappear  from  her  domains,  into  those  of  Chaos,  Hypoth- 
esis and  Simulacrum,  or  wherever  else  his  parish  may 
be."1  Thus  we  see  that  the  Pilgrims,  though  honored, 
are  esteemed  no  more  worthy  of  honor  than  the 
first  followers  of  Mahomet.  Ability  and  fear-  JJee^ove^n- 
lessness,  in  whatever  form  shown,  are  the  real  tlerVase! 
source  of  merit;  and  they  are  admired  just  as 
much  in  despots  as  in  bodies  of  men  struggling  to  be 
free ;  examples  of  the  latter  being  extolled  only  in  dam- 
aging contrast  with  the  established  governments  of  Eu- 
rope. In  no  case  is  any  love  shown  for  governments  by 
the  people.  When  the  nation  which  he  recognizes  as 
"the  largest  on  earth,"  whose  seed  was  wafted  in  the 
Mayflower,  is  in  trouble,  and  asks  the  countenance  of 
good  men  throughout  the  world,  while  asserting  its  right 
to  exist,  instead  of  the  smallest  word  of  sympathy  from 
Carlyfe,  it  is  insulted  with  outpourings  of  contempt  and 
scorn.  Its  purpose  to  let  the  oppressed  go  free  is  rid- 
iculed under  the  title  of  sympathy  for  "Quashee;"  its  at- 
tempt to  carry  out  its.  own  democratic  ideas  is  called  "  a 
shooting  of  Niagara ; "  the  terrible  war  which  it  endures, 
rather  than  let  the  world's  last  hope  of  liberty  perish,  is 
contemptuously  pictured  as  "  the  foul  chimney  burning 
itself  clean."  No  language  could  be  more  scornful  than 
that  which  Carlyle  hurls  at  the  masses  of  the  people,  and 

i  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  363. 


250          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

on  popular  governments  of  every  kind.  The  law  of  ve- 
racity, the  silences,  the  eternities,  or  whatever  other  name 
he  chooses  to  give  his  nature-god,  is  not  in  them;  and 
therefore,  says  he,  "  let  them  take  themselves  out  of  the 
way." 

Carlyle  ridicules  the  efforts  of  the  humane  to  reform 
the  vicious  and  criminal  classes,  thus  showing,  in  its  bald- 
est form,  his  thorough  hatred  of  everything 
monii  re-  which  is  too  weak  to  guide  and  take  care  of 
itself.  He  thinks  that  every  moral  and  social 
reform,  looking  to  the  recovery  of  outcasts,  should  be 
named  a  "  Universal  Sluggard-and-Scoundrel  Protection 
Society."  Those  outcasts  he  calls  "the  elixir  of  the  infat- 
uated among  mortals."  If  we  want  the  worst  possible 
investment  of  our  benevolence,  in  laboring  to  save  the 
poor  and  vicious  classes,  we  " accurately  have  it."  "No- 
where so  as  here,"  says  he  to  us,  "  can  you  be  certain  that 
a  given  quantity  of  wise  teaching  bestowed,  of  benevo- 
lent trouble  taken,  will  yield  zero,  or  the  minimum  of 
return.  It  is  sowing  of  your  wheat  upon  Irish  quagmires  ; 
laboriously  harrowing  it  in  upon  the  sand  of  the  sea- 
shore." l  "  Not  brotherhood ;  in  enmity  that  muft  last 
through  eternity,  in  unappeasable  aversion,  shall  I  have  to 
live  with  these!  Brotherhood?  No,  be  the 
Misanthro-  t^ght  far  from  me.  They  are  Adam's  chil- 
dren,—  alas  yes,  I  well  remember  that,  and 
never  shall  forget ;  hence  this  rage  and  sorrow." 2  "  If  I 
had  a  commonwealth  to  govern,"  says  Carlyle,  —  as, 
Heaven  be  thanked,  he  has  not,  —  "certainly  it  should  not 
be  these  Devil's  regiments  of  the  line  that  I  would  first 

i  New  Essays,  p.  77.  2  Ibid.,  p.  84. 


PANTHEISM.  251 

of  all  concentrate  my  attention  on.  With  them  I  should 
be  apt  to  make  rather  brief  work ;  to  them  one  would 
apply  the  besom,  try  to  sweep  them  with  some  rapidity 
into  the  dust-bin,  and  well  out  of  one's  road,  I  should 
rather  say.  Fill  your  threshing-floor  with  docks,  rag- 
weeds, mugworths,  and  ply  your  flail  upon  them,  —  that  is 
not  the  method  to  obtain  sacks  of  wheat.  Away,  you ; 
begone  swiftly,  ye  regiments  of  the  line."  1 

With  such  contempt  for  all  efforts  to  save  the  aban- 
doned classes,  denying  them,  as  he  does,  the  very  elements 
of  humanity,  declaring  that  they  are  not  in  any  degree 
susceptible  of  improvement,  Carlyle  need  hardly 

J     Origin  of 

take  the  trouble  to  assure  us  that  he  has  no   his  con- 
tempt for 
faith   in   popular   governments.      His    political   democra- 

views  are  a  legitimate  deduction  from  his  low 
estimate  of  human  nature.  Yet  he  is  at  pains  to  state  his 
political  views;  and  if  we  do  not  understand  them,  it 
certainly  cannot  be  because  his  language  is  not  explicit 
and  strong  enough.  He  sees  the  oppressed  people  of 
Europe  looking  hopefully  to  the  example  of  America,  and 
lie  says,  "  Alas,  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  and  on  that, 
Democracy,  we  apprehend,  is  forever  impossible.  So 
much,  with  certainty  of  loud,  astonished  contradiction 
from  all  manner  of  men  at  present,  but  with  sure  appeal 
to  the  law  of  nature  and  the  ever-abiding  fact,  may  be 
suggested  and  asserted  once  more.  The  universe  itself  is 
a  monarchy  and  hierarchy ;  large  liberty  of  voting  there, 
all  manner  of  choice,  utmost  free-will,  but  with  conditions 
inexorable  and  immeasurable  annexed  to  every  exercise 
of  the  same." 2  Mankind  are  a  worthless  set,  that  is,  taken 

i  New  Essays,  p.  74.  2  ibid.,  p.  27. 


252  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

in  the  mass ;  but  here  and  there  may  be  found  a  single 
man,  worthy  to  be  trusted  with  such  absolute  power 
over  his  fellows  as  God  exercises  on  a  universal  scale! 
"Democracy  is,  by  the  nature  of  it,  a  self-cancelling 
business :  and  gives  in  the  long  run  a  net  result  of  zero. 
Where  no  government  is  wanted,  save  that  of  the  parish- 
constable,  as  in  America  with  its  boundless  soil,  every 
man  being  able  to  find  work  and  recompense  for  himself, 
democracy  may  subsist;  not  elsewhere,  except  briefly,  as 
a  swift  transition  towards  something  other  and  further. 
Democracy  never  yet,  that  we  heard  of,  was  able  to  ac- 
complish much  work,  beyond  that  same  cancelling  of 
itself." l 

But  we  will  not  keep  to  this  negative  side  of  Carlyle's 
creed  any  longer.     We  have  seen  what  power, 

Negative  side 

of  his  poiit-    and   what   weakness,  it   lends   him   before   his 

ical  creed.  <  t 

world-wide  audience.  Stating  his  intense  dis- 
belief in  hereditary  monarchies  and  aristocracies,  which 
are  based  on  Written  constitutions,  the  -oppressed  masses 
applaud  him;  and  on  the  other  hand  those  same  de- 
nounced governments  applaud,  as  he  in  turn  utters  his 
detestation  of  all  popular  governments.  Republicanism  is 
not  better  to  him  than  absolutism,  but  worse,  where  pre- 
scribed forms  of  law  determine  the  course  of  affairs.  His 
hatred  of  constitutional  free  government  is  as  bitter  and 
fixed  as-  his  hatred  of  constitutional  monarchy.  He  puts 
them  alike  into  the  category  of  things  which  are  contrary 
to  nature;  which  are  therefore  unreal,  and  without  any 
essence  of  divinity  in  them.  He  denounces  them  impar- 
tially, with  such  power  of  expression  as  he  can  bring  from 

1  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  344. 


PANTHEISM.  253 

his  ample  vocabulary ;  and  then  turning  from  them,  as 
worse  than  worthless  things,  he  shows  his  "  more  excellent 
way."  What  that  way  is,  we  will  now  proceed  to  see. 

The  panacea  which  Carlyle  proposes  for  all  social  or 
governmental  evils  is  Hero-worship.  The  Millennium 
will  come  to  the  world,  and  to  governments  of 

,       His  politi- 

whatever  name,  when  the  masses  of  the  people   cai  and  so- 
cial creed 
everywhere  bow  down,  in  unquestioning  rever-  positively 

ence,  before  a  few  whom,  they  recognize  as  great  Hero-wor- 
inen.  Their  personal  will,  unshackled  by  writ- 
ten constitutions,  should  give  laws  to  the  masses  about 
them;  for  in  them,  more  than  all  things  else,  does  the 
divine  soul  of  nature,  which  is  incapable  of  error,  make 
itself  manifest.  "Able  men  to  govern  us;  that  would  be 
the  way,  nor  is  there  any  other  remedy  for  whatsoever 
goes  wrong.  There  is  but  one  man  fraught  with  blessings 
to  this  world,  fated  to  diminish  and  successively  abolish 
the  curses  of  the  world.  For  him  make  search,  him  rever- 
ence and  follow;  know  that  to  find  him  or  miss  him 
means  victory  or  defeat  for  you  in  all  establishments  and 
enterprises  here  below." *  "  He  is  a*bove  thee,  like  a  god. 
Thou,  in  thy  stupendous  three-inch  pattens,  art  under  him. 
He  is  thy  born  king,  thy  conqueror  and  supreme  lawgiver ; 
not  all  the  guineas  and  cannons,  and  leather  and  prunella, 
under  Ihe  sky  can  save  thee  from  him."  $  That  in  men 
which  we  call  genius,  is,  according  to  Carlyle,  only  the 
more  intensely  revealed  power  of  the  absolute  all-in-all. 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  simply  the  largest  amount  of  reli- 
gious genius  ever  enjoyed  by  a  single  person  ;  and  it  is  that 

1  New  Essays,  p.  137.  2  past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  291. 


254          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

which  has  made  him  "  a  god  to  this  hour."  1  "  I  should 
say,  if  we  do  not  reckon  a  great  man  literally  divine,  it  is 
that  our  notions  of  God,  of  the  supreme  unattainable 
fountain  of  splendor,  wisdom  and  heroism,  are  ever  rising 
higher ;  not  altogether  that  our  feverence  for  these  quali- 
ties, as  manifested  in  our  like,  is  getting  lower." 2  "  The 
great  man  is  a  force  of  nature;  whatever  is  truly  great  in 
him  springs  up  from  the  inarticulate  depths." 3  "  To  do 
every  one  of  us  what  lies  in  him,  that  the  able  man  every- 
where may  be  put  into  the  place  that  is  fit  for  him,  which 
is  his  by  actual  right:  is  not  this  the  sum  of  all  social  mo- 
rality for  every  citizen  of  the  world  ?  " 4  "  Worship,  what 
we  call  human  religion,  has  undergone  various  phases  in 
the  history  of  mankind.  To  the  primitive  man  all  forces 
of  nature  were  divine;  either  for  propitiation  or  for  admi- 
ration, many  things,  and  in  a  sense  all  things,  demanded 
worship  from  him.  But  especially  the  noble  human  soul 
was  divine  to  him ;  and  announced  with  direct  impressive- 
ness,  as  it  ever  does,  the  inspiration  of  the  Highest;  de- 
manding worship  from  the  primitive  man.  Whereby,  as 
has  been  explained  elsewhere,  this  latter  form  of  worship, 
Hero-worship  as  we*call  it,  did,  among  the  ancient  peo- 
ples, attract  and  subdue  to  itself  all  other  forms  of  human 
worship;  irradiating  them  all  with  its  own  perennial 
worth,  which  is  indeed  all  the  worth  they  had,  or  that  any 
worship  can  have.  Human  worship  everywhere, 

Hero-wor- 

shdp  the         so  iar  as  there  lay  any  worth  in  it,  was  of  the 

source  of 

primitive        nature  of  Hero-worship  :  this  universe  wholly, 

govern- 
ments, this  temporary  flame-image  of  the  eternal,  was 

i  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  292.  2  Hero-worship,  p.  75. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  101.  <  New  Essays,  p.  330. 


PANTHEISM.  255 

one  beautiful  and  terrible  energy  of  heroisms,  presided 
over  by  a  divine  nobleness  and  Infinite  Hero.  Divine 
nobleness  forever  friendly  to  the  noble,  forever  hostile  to 
the  ignoble:  all  manner  of  '  moral  rules '  and  well  'sanc- 
tioned '  too,  flowed  naturally  out  of  this  primeval  intuition 
into  nature; — which,  I  believe,  is  still  the  true  fountain 
of  moral  rules,  though  much  forgotten  at  present."1 

Not  only  does  Carlyle  lay  it  down  as  an  historical  fact, 
that  Hero-worship  was  the  basis  of  primitive  governments, 
but  he  contends  that  such  is,  and  ever  must  be  the  only 
true  basis  of  authority.  He  is  the  born  ruler,  and  should 
be  so  received,  who  has  the  inherent  power  to 
make  himself  master  of  other  men.  "  In  this  thcfoniy 

,     real  source. 

world  there  is  one  godlike  thing,  the  essence  or 
all  that  ever  was  or  ever  will  be  of  godlike  in  this  world : 
the  veneration  due  to  human  worth  by  the  hearts  of 
men."2  In  utter  forgetfulness  of  his  saying,  that  "religion 
is  reverence  for  what  is  beneath  us,"  Carlyle  uses  this 
language,  and  much  more.  "  Hero-worship ;  heartfelt, 
prostrate  admiration  ;  submission  burning,  boundless,  for 
a  noblest  godlike  form  of  man,  —  is  not  this,"  he  asks, 
"  the  germ  of  Christianity  itself?  " 3  "  Hero-worship  is  the 
summary,  ultimate  essence  and  supreme  perfection,  of  all 
manner  of  worship."4  "It  is  certain,  whatever  gods  or 
fetiches  a  man  may  have  about  him,  and  pay  tithes  to, 
and  mumble  prayers  to,  the  real  '  religion '  that  is  in  him 
is  his  practical  hero-worship.  Theologies,  doxologies,  or- 
thodoxies, heterodoxies,  are  not  of  moment  except  as  sub- 
sidiary towards  a  good  issue  in  this." 5  "  The  man  Napoleon 

i  New  Essays,  pp.  350,  351.  2  past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  287. 

»  Hero-worship,  p.  10.  *  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  33, 

«  New  Essays,  p.  353. 


256          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

was  a  divine  missionary,  though  unconscious  of  it ;  nnd 
preached,  through  the  cannon's  throat,  that  great  doctrine, 
the  tools  to  him  that  can  handle  them ;  which  is  our  ulti- 
mate political  evangel,  wherein  alone  can  true  liberty  lie."  ! 
"  What  is  the  Bible  of  a  nation,  the  practically  credited 
God's  message  to  a  nation  ?  Is  it  not,  beyond  all  else,  the 
authentic  biography  of  its  heroic  souls?  This  is  the  real 
record  of  the  appearances  of  God  in  the  history  of  a  na- 
tion ;  this  it  is  which  teaches  all  men  what  the  universe, 
when  you  go  to  work  in  it,  really  is." 2  "  The  early  nations 
of  the  world,  all  nations  so  long  as  they  continued  simple 

and  in  earnest,  knew  without  teaching  that  their 
th^rea?en  history  was  an  epic  and  Bible,  the  clouded 

struggling  image  of  a  God's  presence,  the  action 
of  heroes  and  God-inspired  men."3  "Human  intellect, 
if  you  consider  well,  is  the  exact  summary  of  human 
worth;"4  and  "reverence  for  this  intellectual  power, 
loyal  furtherance  and  obedience  to  it,  are  the  outcome  and 
essence  of  all  true  '  religions,'  and  was,  and  ever  will  be." 5 
To  the  man  of  great  intellect,  regardless  of  eArery  other 
qualification,  "belongs  eternally  the  government  of  the 
world.  Where  he  reigns  all  is  blessed,  and  the  good  re- 
joice, and  the  wicked  make  wail.  Where  the  contrary  of 
him  reigns,  all  is  accursed ;  and  the  gods  lament,  and  will, 
by  terrible  methods,  rectify  the  matter  by  and  by.  Have 
you  forbidden  this  man  to  rule  ?  Obey  he  cannot.  He  will 
retire  rather,  into  deserts,  far  from  you  and  your  affairs. 
You  and  your  affairs,  once  well  quit  of  him,  go  by  a  swift 
and  ever  swifter  road."  6  Carlyle's  doctrine  of  hero-worship, 

i  Sartor  Resartus,  p.  138.  2  New  Essays,  p,  357.  3  Ibid.,  409. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  136.  6  Ibid.,  p,  135.  •  Ibid.,  p.  321. 


PANTHEISM.  257 

• 

and  the  obedience  due  great  men  as  the  ordained  rulers 
of  the  world,  seems  to  be  this:  certain  fixed  and  eternal 
forces,  modes  of  the  omnipresent  essence  of  all  things,  are 
manifested  differently  in  different  men.  He  who  is  most 
vividly  conscious  of  these  divine  impulses,  and  who  most 
thoroughly  makes  himself  an  instrument  for  carrying  them 
out  to  their  fated  issue,  is  the  true-born  master,  before 
whom  all  others  should  fall  down  and  worship,  letting 
him  do  what  he  will -with  them  and  theirs.  "  God's  light," 
he  says,  "is  human  intellect;"  and  he  finds 

Carlvle's 

more  of  that  lirfit  in  Robert  Burns  than  in  any     ideal  of  a 

great  man. 

other  man  then  on  the  stage.  The  poet  of  Ayr- 
shire, according  to  him,  ought  to  have  been  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  English  government.  "  Robert  Burns,"  he  says, 
"had  not  the  smallest  chance  to  get  into  Parliament,  much 
as  he  deserved,  for  all  our  sakes,  to  have  beep  found  there. 
For  the  man  was  a  born  king  of  men :  full  of  valor,  of 
intelligence  and  heroic  nobleness ;  fit  for  far  other  work 
than  to  break  his  heart  among  poor  mean  mortals." l  We 
may  go  as  far  as  Carlyle  in  admiration  Of  the  wonderful 
poetical  power  of  Burns ;  but  was  that  power  of  just  the 
kind  which,  in  any  nation  or  age,  has  shown  itself  able  to 
rule  ?  He  who  is  not  master  of  himself  should  hardly  be 
allowed  to  lord  it  over  others  in  the  style  which  hero- 
worship  enjoins.  We  could  hardly  believe  that  Carlyle  is 
serious,  but  should  suspect  him  of  irony  oftentimes,  while 
reading  his  expositions  of  his  favorite  doctrine,  did  not 
his  evident  earnestness  forbid.  We  do  not  find  any  man 
in  all  history,  however  great  and  good  and  inspired,  whom 
we  deem  worthy  to  be  clothed  with  irresponsible  power 

i  New  Essays,  pp.  151,  152. 

17 


258     .     HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THJB  TRUTH. 

over  other  men.  What  shall  be  said,  therefore,  of  a  doc- 
trine which  would  give  such  power  to  a  Burns,  a  Goethe, 
the  Cromwells,  the  Fredericks,  the  Napoleons  of  the 
race?  Our  hearts  refuse  such  homage  as  he  demands, 
even  to  the  highest  possible  ideal  of  a  hero ;  much  more 
do  they  refuse  it  to  the  men  he  offers  us  as  realizing  his 
ideal  of  human  greatness  and  ability  to  govern  !  We  are 
yet  to  learn  that  the  only  hope  of  the  world  is  its  great 
men.  It  certainly  has  breathed  freer,  oftentimes,  when 
well  rid  of  such;  of  men,  that  is,  who  were  great  as 
judged  by  Carlyle's  standard,  Spinoza  does  not  persuade 
our  conscience,  when  he  says,  "I  consider  virtue  and 
power  one  and  the  same  thing ;  " l  nor  can  we  any  longer 
consent  to  the  leadership  of  Carlyle,  when  he  puts  before 
us  men  great  chiefly  in  their  passions  and  ambitions,  as 
the  gods  whom  we  are  to  obey  and  worship. 

Carlyle  seems  to  stfspect  that  his  "political  evangel," 
making  the  masses  of  men  slaves  to  here  and  there  a 

great  man,  may  be  unpalatable.  He  therefore 
theory^?18  turns  special  advocate,  and  endeavors  to  recom- 
ment™  mend  his  theory  of  government  to  our  favorable 

notice,  arguing  for  it  much  as  the  American 
slaveholders  were  wont  to  argue  that  slavery  is  better 
than  freedom  for  the  laboring  classes.  "  The  very  horse," 
says  he,  "  that  is  permanent,  how  much  kindlier  do  he  and 
his  master  work,  than  the  temporary  one,  hired  on  any 
hack  principle  yet  known.  I  am  for  permanence  in  all 
things,  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and  to  the  latest 
possible.  Blessed  is  he  that  continueth  where  he  is." 2 
This  reasoning  would  be  well  enough  touching  the  organ- 

i  Ethics,  Ft.  IV.  Def.  8.  2  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  280. 


PANTHEISM,  259 

ization  of  human  society,  if  the  mass  of  men  have,  as 
seems  to  be  assumed  by  Carlyle,  only  an  equine  nature. 
What  is  good  for  the  horse  and  his  owner,  is  good  for 
men  and  their  rulers,  if  these  rulers  be  indeed  what  hero- 
worship  pre-supposes,  in  relation  to  those  whom  they 
govern.  But  no  such  inequality  as  this  can  be  admitted, 
while  we  hold  to  the  unity  of  the  human  race,  while  we 
recognize  freedom,  immortality,  and  the  power  of  self-gov- 
ernment in  all.  It  also  strikes  us  oddly,  that  Carlyle, 
while  holding  this  theory,  should  exhort  every  one  to  re- 
main where  he  is.  The  grand  complaint  which  he  makes 
is,  that  the  great  men,  who  monopolize  all  the  divinity 
there  is  in  the  world,  are  left  so  often  in  obscurity,  and  not 
brought  forward  to  be  enthroned  and  worshipped.  The 
"permanence"  which  he  desires  is  not  to  begin,  therefore, 
till  after  this  enthronement.  When  the  few  "heroes"  are 
clothed  with  irresponsible  power  over  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, who  willingly  accept  the  position  of  slaves  under 
them,  then  his  millennium  will  begin.  He  laments  the  feu- 
dal age  of  English  history,  thinking  it  far  happier  than  the 
present  age  of  personal  liberty.  "  Garth's  brass  collar  did 
not  gall  him ;  Cedric  deserved  to  be  his  master.  The  pigs 
were  Cedric's,  but  Gurth  would  get  the  parings  of  them. 
Gurth  had  the  inexpressible  satisfaction  of  feeling  himself 
related  indissolubly,  though  in  a  rude  brass-collar  way,  to 
his  fellow-mortals  on  this  earth.  He  had  superiors,  infe- 
riors, equals.  Gurth  is  now  '  emancipated  ; '  has  what  we 
call '  liberty.'  Liberty,  I  am  told,  is  a  divine  thing.  Lib- 
erty, when  it  becomes  liberty  to  die  of  starvation,  is  not 
go  divine."  l  It  must  be  confessed  that  our  author  faces 

i  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  212. 


260          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

this  alternative  of  lordship  or  serfhood  with  much  show 
of  personal  courage.  He  resigns  himself  to  the  decree  of 
fate,  in  language  at  least,  whether  that  decree  shall  assign 
him  to  the  place  of  the  master  or  of  the  slave.  "  If  thou 
art  in  very  deed  my  wiser,  may  a  beneficent  instinct  lead 
and  impel  thee  to  conquer  me,  to  command  me.  If  thou 
do  know  better  than  I  what  is  right,  I  conjure  thee,  in  the 
name  of  God,  force  me  to  do  it,  were  it  by  never  such 
brass  collars,  whips  and  handcuffs."  l 

And  here  we  come  to  the  point  where  Carlyle's  doc- 
trine  breaks    down    utterly.     It   is   the   point   of  practi- 
cal trial;  the  direct  contest,  between  man  and 

The  result  of  .  .    ,      .  ,      .  ,          .          ... 

the  theory  is  man,  which  is  to  decide  who  shall  govern  and 
who  submit.  The  waxen  wings  by  which  hu- 
manity is  to  fly  clear  of  all  evils  melt  as  soon  as  the  flight 
is  undertaken.  The  godhead,  which  is  the  sum  of  all 
reality,  dwells  in  a  few  great  men,  who,  by  virtue  of  this 
indwelling  divinity,  ought  t.o  rule  over  us  and  ours ;  but 
how  to  place  them  in  position,  how  to  secure  them  this 
leadership,  so  as  to  inaugurate  the  golden  reign  of  heroes, 
is  a  question  before  which  even  Carlyle  seems  to  see  that 
his  argument  labors.  Yet  he  does  not  quail.  He  refuses 
to  accept  no  logical  result  of  his  theory.  Never  did  a 
reorganizer  of  human  society  face  a  difficulty  more  boldly, 
or  state  it  more  frankly.  "  Who  is  slave,  and  eternally 
appointed  to  be  governed;  who  free,  and  eternally  ap- 
pointed to  govern  ?  It  would  much  avail  us  to  settle  this 
question,"  says  he.2  "To  increase  the  reverence  for  hu- 
man intellect,  or  God's  light,  what  method  is  there  ? 
Pray  that  Heaven  would  please  to  vouchsafe  us  each  a 

i  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  213.  2  New  Essays,  p.  310. 


PANTHEISM.  261 

little  of  it,  one  by  one !  As  perhaps  Heaven,  in  infinite 
mercy  by  stern  methods,  gradually  will.  Perhaps  Heaven 
has  mercy  too,  in  these  sore  plagues  that  are  oppressing 
us ;  and  means  to  teach  us  reverence  for  heroism  and  hu- 
man intellect,  by  such  baleful  experience  of  what  issue 
imbecility  and  parliamentary  eloquence  lead  to." 1  "  What 
are  all  popular  commotions  and  maddest  bellowings,  from 
Peterloo  to  the  Place-de-Greve  itself?  To  the  ear  of  wis- 
dom they  are  inarticulate  prayers  :  '  guide  me,  govern  me ! 
I  am  mad  and  miserable,  and  cannot  guide  myself.' 
Surely  of  all  'rights  of. man,'  this  right  of  the  ignorant 
man  to  be  guided  by  the  wiser,  to  be  gently  or  forcibly 
held  in  the  true  course  by  him,  is  the  indisputablest. 
Nature  herself  ordains  it  from  the  first ;  society  struggles 
towards  perfection  by  enforcing  and  accomplishing  it  more 
and  more.  If  freedom  has  any  meaning,  it  means  enjoy- 
ment of  this  right,  wherein  all  other  rights  are  enjoyed. 
It  is  a  sacred  right  and  duty  on  both  sides ;  and  the  sum- 
mary of  all  social  duties  between  the  two.  Why  does 
one  toil  with  his  hands,  if  the  other  be  not  to  toil,  still 
more  unweariedly,  with  heart  and  head?  The  brawny 
craftsman  finds  it  no  child's  play  to  mould  the  unpliant, 
rugged  masses ;  neither  is  guidance  of  men  a  dilettantism : 
what  it  becomes  when  treated  as  a  dilettantism,  we  may 
see."2 

Thus  does  the  problem  present  itself  to  Carlyle's  mind ; 
and  he  is  shut  up  to  a  single  method  of  solving  it.  The 
strongest  man  must  hold  the  sceptre,  the  weaker  must  wear 
the  yoke.  Let  us  not  start  back  from  this  solution,  for  he 
offers  no  other.  "Divine  right,"  he  says,  "take  it  on  the 

i  New  Essays,  p.  145.  2  past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  343. 


262         HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

great  scale,  is  divine  might  withal."  He  finds  this  might 
in  Cromwell,  more  than  in  Napoleon ;  hence  he  deems, 
the  Protector  worthy  of  more  homage  than  the  Emperor. 
This  might  within  him,  what  Carlyle  calls  "latent  valor 
and  thought,  content  to  lie  latent,  then  burst  out  as  in  a 
blaze  qf  heaven's  lightning,"  1  was  the  basis  of  his  right  to 
revolutionize  the  English  government.  But  we  think  that 
Cromwell  himself  would  have  given  quite  another  account 
of  his  riglit  in  that  matter.  He  asked  neither  worship  nor 
homage  for  his  own  person ;  nor  did  he  esteem  himself 
strong,  save  in  the  devotion  of  his  people  with  him  to  a 
common  end,  which  he  sought  to  secure  by  just  laws 
representing  the  national  will.  "The  just  thing,  in  the 
long  run,"  says  Carlyle,  "  is  the  strong  thing."  "  Await 
the  issue.  In  all  battles,  if  you  await  the  issue,  each  fighter 
has  prospered  according  to  his  right.  His  right  and  his 
might,  at  the  close  of  the  account,  are  one  and  the  same." 2 
"  The  painfuflest  feeling  is  that  of  your  own  feebleness : 
to  be  weak  is  the  true  misery."3  According  to  Carlyle 
the  Apostle  was  mistaken  when  he  declared  sin  to  be  the 
great  calamity,  and  when  he  gloried  in  his  weakness  as  the 
occasion  of  power.  His  glorying  as  he  did  was  not  a 
Christian  virtue,  but  a  foolish  habit  of  his,  since  feebleness 
is  "  the  true  misery."  And  why  is  man's  consciousness  of 
weakness  his  greatest  calamity  ?  Because  "  mights,  I  say, 
are  a  dreadful  business  to  articulate  correctly.  Yet  articu- 
lated they  have  to  be ;  the  time  comes  for  it,  the  need 
comes  for  it,  and  with  enormous  difficulty  and  experi- 
menting it  is  got  done.  Call  it  not  succession  of  rebel- 

i  Hero-worship,  p.  212.  2  past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  H. 

3  Sartor  Resartus,  p.  128. 


PANTHEISM.  263 

lions  ;  call  it  rather  succession  of  expansions,  of  enlighten- 
ments, gift  of  articulate  utterance  descending  lower  and 
lower." l  Thus  does  the  "  ultimate  political  evangel," 
which  was  to  free  the  world  from  hereditary  despotisms, 
from  governments  by  written  constitutions,  and  from  elec- 
tive democracies,  and  which  was  to  usher  in  the  golden 
reign  of  heroes,  end  in  a  carnival  of  riot  and  red-handed 
rebellion.  A  revolutionary  spirit,  acting  itself  out  to  the 
utmost,  is  the  only  way  of  lifting  up  to  supreme  power  the 
few  who  deserve  to  rule,  and  of  forcing  all  others  down 
into  proper  subjection.  It  is  with  men  as  with  oxen,  where 
a  trial  of  sheer  strength  decides  which  one  shall  be  the 
leader  of  the  herd.  "  I  say  sometimes,"  is  Carlyle's  lan- 
guage, "  that  all  goes  by  wager  of  battle  in  this  world ; 
that  strength,  well  understood,  is  the  measure  of  all  worth. 
Give  a  thing  time ;  if  it  can  succeed,  it  is  a  right  thing." 2 
"  I  care  little  about  the  sword :  I  will  allow  a  thing  to 
struggle  for  itself  in  the  world,  with  any  sword,  or  tongue, 
or  implement  it  has,  or  can  lay  hold  of.  We  will  let  it 
preach,  and  pamphleteer,  and  fight,  and  to  the  uttermost 
bestir  itself;  and  do,  beak  and  claws,  whatsoever  is  in  it ; 
very  sure  that  it  will,  in  the  long  run,  conquer  nothing 
which  does  not  deserve  to  be  conquered.  In  this  great 
duel  nature  Herself  is  umpire,  and  can  do  no  wrong :  the 
thing  which  is  deepest  rooted  in  nature,  which  we  call 
truest,  that  thing  will  be  found  growing  at  last." 3  "  The 
fighting  was  indispensable,  for  ascertaining  who  had  the 
right  over  whom.  By  much  hard  fighting,  as  we  once  said, 
'  the  unrealities,  beaten  into  dust,  flew  off; '  and  left  the 

»  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  360.  2  Hero-worshipx  p.  128. 

s  Ibid.,  p.  55. 


264          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

plain  reality  and  fact,  '  tliou  stronger  than  I,  thou  wiser 
than  I ;  therefore  thou  king,  and  subject  I.' "  * 

Verily  here  is  a  prospect  such  as  Robin  Hood,  or  Goetz 
of  the  iron  hand,  would  have  shrunk  from  contemplating. 
Ishmael,  whose  hand  was  against  every  man,.is  our  nearest 
example  of  Carlyle's  true  hero.  He  delivers  the  world 
over  to  a  perpetual  scene  of  conflict,  each  man  for  -himself 
and  against  all  others  ;  and  the  whole  dominion  is  his,  who 
for  the  time  being  manages  to  keep  uppermost.  No  won- 
der that  our  author,  in  view  of  this  "  dreadful  business  of 
getting  the  mights  articulated  into  rights,"  exhorts  men  to 
fling  away  fear.  "  It  is  an  everlasting  duty,"  he  says,  "the 
duty  of  being  brave.  Valor  is  still  value.  The  first  duty 
of  a  man  is  still  that  of  subduing  fear.  We  must  get  rid 
of  fear ;  we  cannot  act  at  all  till  then.  A  man's  acts  are 
slavish,  not  true  but  specious  ;  his  very  thoughts  are  false, 
he  thinks  too  as  a  slave  and  coward,  till  he  has  got  fear 
under  his  feet.  Odin's  creed,  if  we  disentangle  the  kernel 
of  it,  is  true  to  this  hour.  A  man  shall  and  must  be  val- 
iant ;  he  must  march  forward,  and  quit  himself  like  a  man, 
trusting  imperturbably  in  the  appointment  and  choice  of 
the  upper  Powers ;  and,  on  the  whole,  not  fear  at  all. 
Now  and  always,  the  completeness  of  his  victory  over  fear 
will  determine  how  much  of  a  man  lie  is."  2  The  madness 
of  poor  old  Lear,  defying  the  darkness  and  storm ;  or  of 
Milton's  Satan,  braving  the  terror's  of  the  fiery  abyss,  was 
not  more  audacious  in  its  wrildiiess  than  Carlyle  would 
beget  in  each  and  every  man.  "  What  art  thou  afraid 
of? "  he  scornfully  says  to  the  man  who  has  an  atom  of 
fear  for  anything  in  heaven,  on  earth,  or  under  the  earth. 

i  Past,  Present,  and  Chartism,  p.  245.  2  Hero-worship,  p.  28 


PANTHEISM.  265 

Wherefore,  like  a  coward,  dost  thou  forever  pip  and 
whimper,  and  go  cowering  and  trembling?  Despicable 
biped  !  What  is  the  sum-total  of  the  worst  that  lies  before 
thee  ?  Death  ?  Well,  death ;  and  say  the  pangs  of 
Tophet  too-,  and  all  that  the  devil  and  man  may,  will,  or 
can  do  against  thee.  Hast  thou  not  a  heart  ?  Canst  thou 
not  suffer  whatso  it  be  ;  and,  as  a  child  of  freedom,  though 
outcast,  trample  Tophet  itself  under  thy  feet,  while  it 
consumes  thee  ?  Let  it  come,  then ;  I  will  meet  and 
defy  it."  l 

This   will   do.     Here  we   take  our  leave  of 
Carlyle  and  his  ultimate  evangel.     We  trust  it   ship  con- 

„  „      .  trusted  with 

is  not  want  01  courage,  but  want  ot  misanthropy,   Chris- 
tianity, 
which  makes  us  shrink  from  the  social  chaos  he 

invokes,  —  a  chaos  which  that  of  old,  when  the  earth  was 
void  and  darkness  rested  on  the  face  of  the  deep,  but 
faintly  prefigured.  It  is  not  Titanic  strength,  confusing 
heaven  and  earth  with  its  wild  rush  and  battle,  but  the 
spirit  of  God,  brooding  like  a  dove  on  human  society,  that 
will  bring  forth  order,  and  serene  beauty  and  peace. 
There  is  a  better  gospel  for  the  nations  than  this  panthe- 
ism, which  limits  all  reality  to  a  few  mighty  men,  for  whose 
use  and  behoof  all  things  else  are,  and  were,  and  ever  will 
be.  It  is  with  feelings  of  profound  joy  that  we  turn  from 
Carlyle's  desperate  conclusion  to  such  words  as  those  of 
Goldwin  Smith,  where  he  says,  "  Of  the  religion  of  hero- 
worship  I  am  no  devotee.  Great  men  are  most  precious 
gifts  of  Heaven,  and  unhappy  is  the  nation  which  cannot 
produce  them  at  its  need.  But  their  importance  in  history 
becomes  less  as  civilization  goes  on.  A  Timonr  or  an 

1  Sartor  Resartus,  p.  131. 


266          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Attila  towers  immeasurably  above  his  horde ;  but  in  the 
last  great  struggle  which  the  world  has  seen,  the  struggle 
of  the  North  American  states  for  their  Union,  the  hero 
was  an  intelligent  and  united  nation.  And  to  whatever 
age  they  may  belong,  the  greatest,  the  most  godlike  of 
men,  are  men,  not  gods.  They  are  the  offspring,  though 
the  highest  offspring,  of  their  age.  They  would  be  nothing 
without  their  fellow-men.  Carlyle  prostrates  morality  be- 
fore greatness.  We  might  as  well  bow  down  before  the 
hundred-handed  idol  of  the  Hindoos.  To  moral  force  we 
may  bow  down;  but  moral  force  resides  and  can  reside  in 
those  only  who  obey  the  moral  law.  It  is  found  in  the 
highest  degree  in  those  at  whom  hero-worship  sneers."  l 
Set  over  against  the  political  ravings  of  Carlyle,  who 
knows  no  God,  and  no  government,  human  or  divine,  save 
wrhat  he  finds  in  great  men,  how  grandly  true  are  the  lines 
of  Wordsworth,  in  his  Sonnets  dedicated  to  liberty,,  where 
he  says,  — 

"  A  few  plain  instincts,  and  a  few  plain  rules, 

Have  wrought  more  for  mankind,  in  the  disastrous  hour, 
Than  all  the  pride  of  intellect  and  thought."  2 

Every  right  feeling  in  us  responds  instantly  to  these 
noble  words.  And  a  Greater  than  Wordsworth  or  Gold- 
win  Smith  has  taught  us,  in  language  still  sending  an 
inspiration  through  the  ages,  that  not  the  lofty,  but  the 
lowly-hearted  are  the  light  of  life  to  our  world.  Let  the 
pantheist  leave  his  great  men,  whom  he  regards  as  the 

1  Three  English  Statesmen  (Harpers,  1867),  pp.  79-81. 

~  1  give  the  lines  as  usually  quoted,  though  changed  from  their  original  form. 
See  Sonnets  dedicated  to  Liberty  (English  ed.,  p.  239),  Part  II.,  Sonnet  10. 


PANTHEISM.  267 

only  Shekinah.  Let  him  go  back  from  his  hero-worship, 
through  Him  who  is  the  living  way,  till  he  finds  again  that 
Father  of  his  spirit  from  whom  he  has  wandered,  and  he 
shall  know  the  truth.  He  shall  know  that  truth  which 
breaks  the  fatal  dream  of  philosophy,  and  leads  her  forth 
into  the  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  For  it  is  an  ever- 
lasting truth,  which  all  history  illustrates  and  every  noblest 
thing  in  us  welcomes,  that  God  chooses  not  the  mighty, 
but  the  weak  to  confound  the  mighty ;  that  it  pleases  him 
to  hide  from  the  wise  and  prudent  what  he  reveals  unto 
babes  ;  and  that  in  the  blessed  ages  to  come,  when  man- 
kind shall  be  at  peace  and  walk  together  as  brethren,  no 
imperial  chieftain,  but  a  little  child  shall  lead  them. 


LECTURE    VII. 

PANTHEISM  IN  THE  FORM  OF  SELF  -WORSHIP. 

THE  pantheist,  holding  that  all  objects  in  the  universe 
manifest  its  one  divine  essence,  will  find  that  essence 
more  especially  amid  those  investigations  to  which  his  en- 
ergies are  devoted.  Goethe,  with  his  passion  for  culture, 
found  it  in  art,  and  the  assthetic  relations  of  things.  Car- 
lyle,  the  eager  student  of  history,  found  it  in  the  great 
men  of  the  world.  But  there  are  other  mental  peculiari- 
ties of  pantheists^  giving  especial  form  to  the  common 
doctrine  which  they  hold.  The  class  of  minds 
i?"m!Vidual"  which  naturally  tend  to  individualism  in  their 
workings  is  perhaps  as  large  as  the  aesthetic  or 
the  historic  and  reformatory.  Their  tendency  is  subjective 
rather  than  objective ;  they  believe  in  the  ideal,  and  dis- 
trust the  so-called  real.  Where  this  class  of  thinkers 
locate  their  Shekinah,  when  under  the  influence  of  pan- 
theism, it  is  important  next  to  consider. 

What  has  already  been  said  of  Carlyle  in  relation  to 
hero-worship  may,  in  relation  to  this  subjective  pantheism, 
be  with  justice  said  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.     lie  repre- 
sents, perhaps   better   than    any  \other  popular 
.  author,  the   introspective   tendency  in   modern 
thought.     The  subject  could  hardly  be  treated 


PANTHEISM.  269 

apart  from  his  writings ;  and  we  may  safely  conclude  that 
we  are  masters  of  it,  not  needing  to  extend  our  researches, 
when  we  thoroughly  understand  him.  Representing  this 
individualism  as  he  does,  and  carrying  it  to  the  point  of 
self-worship  under  the  lead  of  pantheism,  I  shall  fulfil  the 
task  of  the  present  lecture,  if  I  give  a  faithful  account  of 
his  philosophy,  considered  both  in  its  substance  and  its 
practical  development.  And  that  the  account  may  be 
faithful,  with  the  least  possible  chance  of  misrepresentation 
by  me,  I- shall,  as  in  the  case  of  Carlyle,  allow  less  space 
to  my  own  comments  than  to  the  words  of  the  author 
himself.  What  I  give,  let  me  also  say,  must  not  be  re- 
garded as  a  full  and  complete  estimate  of  Emerson.  It  is 
in  a  single,  relation  only  that  I  propose  now  to 
examine  his  writings.,  He  may  have  many  JJeafment^ 
merits  which  the  present  inquiry  does  not  espe- 
cially contemplate,  though  I  shall  hope  to  recognize  them 
all  as  they  incidentally  occur.  My  main  object  will  be 
gained,  if  I  make  clear  his  philosophical  views  and  their 
bearings,  with  a  regard  to  the  logical  connections  and 
progress  of  the  thought,  such  as  his  own  pages  do  not 
deign  to  give. 

It  is  with  feelings  of  relief  that  I  turn  from 
the  works  of  Carlyle  to  those  of  Emerson,  for  I   with  Car- 

lyle. 

cannot  help  the  impression  that  the  latter  is 
much  the  greater  mnn  of  the  two :  not  a  reader  of  so 
many  books  perhaps,  nor  so  accurate  and  exhaustive  a 
student  of  history ;  but  higher  toned,  of  a  serener  spirit, 
with  less  in  his  writings  that  is  ephemeral ;  central  in  his 
thought,  and  balanced  in  expression,  so  as  to  speak  not  for 
a  day  or  generation,  but  for  all  time.  While  the  peculiar 


270          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

phase  of  thinking  which  he  represents  is  in  the  world,  he 
will  be  recognized  as  one  of  its  major  prophets ;  as  having 
at  times,  I  think,  surpassed  any  other  writer  in  uttering 
the  spirit  of  a  subjective  and  ideal  pantheism.  Should  the 
present  age  of  materialism  pass  away,  and  there  be  an- 
other revival  of  the  a-priori  philosophy,  as  will  no  doubt 
be  the  case,  I  predict  that  Emerson  will  be  read,  while 
Carlyle  is  comparatively  forgotten.  That  energy  which 
Carlyle  lets  off  in  stormy  passion,  Emerson  carefully  hus- 
bands, and  puts  into  the  very  substance  of  his  thinking. 
He  never  raves,  like  his  friend  across  the  sea,  but  is  al- 
ways self-contained,  measured  in  his  statements,  well- 
poised  and  calm.  The  poet  Lowell  is  hardly  less  just 
than  witty  where  he  says,  speaking  of  the  two  men,  — 

"  To  compare  him  with  Plato  would  bo  vastly  fairer; 
Carlyle's  the  more  burly,  but  E.  is  the  rarer : 
He  sees  fewer  objects,  but  clearlier,  trulier; 
Jf  C.'s  an  original,  E.'s  more  peculiar: 
That  he's  more  of  a  man  you  might  say  of  one, 
Of  the  other,  he's  more  of  an  Emerson ; 
C.'s  the  Titan,  as  shaggy  of  mind  as  of  limb, 
E.  the  clear-eyed  Olympian,  rapid  and  slim."  ] 

It  is  easy  to  see,  while  reading  Emerson,  that 
kut  temper.  ne  *s  a  person  of  very  great  sensitiveness;  that 
he  has  felt  keenly  the  sharp  antagonism  of  early 
friends.  But  though  this  longing  for  the  love  of  good 
men,  and  pain  at  the  absence  of  it,  appear  in  many  places, 
I  have  looked  in  vain  for  any  weak  word  of  complaint. 
There  is  but  little  that  looks  like  recrimination  anywhere 
in  his  writings.  Few  authors,  so  roughly  criticised  as  he, 

i  Fable  for  the  Critics. 


PANTHEISM.  271 

show  so  little  vindictiveness.  Even  those  who  ignorantly 
and  stupidly  abuse  him,  he  treats  with  good-natured  con- 
descension rather  than  hard  contempt.  So  free  are  his 
pages  from  the  spirit  of  controversy,  that  as  you  read  on 
the  comment  you  make  is,  "  This  man  does  not  seem  to4 
know  how  severely  the  views  he  is  here  stating  have 
been  denounced."  It  is  a  fact,  I  believe,  that  he  has  never 
formally  replied  to  any  of  his  critics.  Certainly  a  man  so 
without  enmities,  and  whom  any  one  may  assail  feeling 
that  he  will  not  retaliate,  should  be  resisted  only  in  the 
interest  of  truth,  and  with  a  spirit  more  generous,  if  pos- 
sible, than  his  own.  In  all  that  I  am  now  about  to  offer  I 
shall  not  speak  against  him,  nor  affect  to  speak  for  him ; 
but,  as  just  intimated,  shall  the  rather  permit  him  to  speak 
for  himself.  I  have  already  shown  what  pantheism,  in  its 
last  analysis,  is ;  and  if  he  is  in  full  sympathy  with  that 
doctrine,  both  he  and  his  friends  ought  to  desire  that  his 
readers  should  know  the  fact. 

Having  compared  Emerson  with   Carlyle,  to 
the  disadvantage  of  the  latter  in  some  respects, 

Goethe. 

I  wish  also  to  say  that,  to  my  view,  he  stands 
on  a  higher  plane  than  Goethe  even.  By  this  I  do  not 
mean  that  his  intellectual  range  is  broader  than  Goethe's. 
He  has  no  sucl^  knowledge  of  natural  science  as  Goethe 
had ;  is  not,  like  him,  at  home  in  all  the  literatures  of  the 
world  ;  but  he  more  uniformly  speaks  to  what  is  noblest 
and  best  in  us.  There  is  far  less  in  his  pages  to  oftend 
our  conscience  and  self-respect.  One  feels,  all  along,  that 
he  is  reading  a  man  whose  thoughts  and  life  are  pure. 
However  dangerous  the  underlying  theory,  yet,  by  a 
charming  inconsistency,  the  immediate  appeal  is  to  our 


272         HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

honor,  our  love  of  the  good,  our  sense  of  right.  Being 
less  true  than  Goethe  to  his  main  speculation,  he  is  more 
true  to  the  moral  convictions  of  mankind.  I  quote  with 
pleasure  his  own  judgment  against  Goethe,  as  showing, 
'however  his  theory  may  tally  with  the  German  poet's,  that 
his  New  England  blood  will  not  let  him  indorse  that  the- 
ory, when  it  is  practically  carried  out  to  all  the  results. 
Ernerson  says,  "  I  dare  not  say  that  Goethe  has  ascended 
to  the  highest  grounds  from  which  genius  has  spoken. 
He  has  not  worshipped  the  highest  unity.  He  is  incapable 
of  self-surrender  to  the  moral  sentiment.  There  are  nobler 
strains  in  poetry  than  any  he  has  sounded.  There  are 
writers  poorer  in  talent,  whose  tone  is  purer,  and  more 
touches  the  heart.  Goethe  can  never  be  dear  to  men. 
His  is  not  even  the  devotion  to  pure  truth ;  but  to  truth 
for  the  sake  of  culture." * 

In  one  respect  it  is  not  so  hard  to  enucleate  the  pan- 
theism of  Emerson  as  that  of  Goethe  and  Carlyle.  He 
rarely  loses  sight  of  his  major  premise.  His  writings, 
whatever  the  occasion  or  immediate  purpose,  seem  al- 
ways to  be  instinct  with  the  spirit  of  Spinozism.  That  is 
the  string  on  which  they  are  all  strung  together;- their 
one  logical  connection,  if  they  have  no  other.  I  am  con- 
fident that'  any  one,  assuming  this  to  be  the 

Monotony.  ... 

clew  to  his  writings,  would  find  but  little  diffi- 
culty in  tracing  their  harmony,  —  nay,  even  their  monot- 
ony. I  shall  follow  this  thread  only  a  little  way,  omitting 
much  that  is  strictly  pertinent,  and  keeping  to  his  more 
elaborate  essays,  in  the  present  inquiry.  It  is  true  that  we 

1  Representative  Men  (Boston,  Phillips,  Sampson,  &  Co.,  1850),  pj>.  278,  279. 


PANTHEISM.  273 

shall  not  find,  even  in  these  essays,  frequent  allusions  to 
Spinoza,  or  to  his  doctrine  under  its  proper  designation. 
Emerson  is  Shy  of  names ;  and  though  he  has  a  confession 
of  faith,  he  is  careful  not  to  give  it  to  his  readers  in  any 
formulated  shape.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  say,  as  some  of 
his  critics  have,  that  he  thus  avoids  the  Avell-known  and 
abhorred  phraseology  because  he  wishes  to  deceive  his 
readers,  imbuing  them  with  the  principles  of  pantheism 
while  they  are  off  their  guard.  He  is  no  such  zealot.  He 
cares  little  for  the  reception  his  doctrine  gets  in  other 
minds.  It  is  not  to  any  taint  of  Jesuitism,  but  to  the 
purely  literary  bent  of  his  genius,  that  this  impatience  of 
technical  terms  is  due.  We  need  not  be  misled,  however, 
though  failing  to  find  the  usual  superscription  on  the  coin ; 
the  ring  of  the  metal  tells  us,  more  clearly  than 
any  image  could,  what  is  its  nature.  Very  t^r™0"61*' 
often  where  Emerson  uses  the  words  "  soul," 
"  spirit,"  "mind,"  "intellect,"  we  shall  find,  when  we  un- 
derstand him,  that  he  does  not  refer  to  anything  individ- 
ual or  personal,  but  to  an  all-surrounding,  all-filling  sub- 
stance, which  he  calls  divine,  and  regards  as  constituting 
the  whole  of  reality.  "  Soul,"  or  "  the  soul,"  seems  to  be 
his  favorite  designation  of  this  essence,  which  Spinoza 
calls  substance,  Schelling  the  subject-object,  and  Hegel 
the  absolute  idea ;  as  where  he  says,  "  the  universe  is  the 
externization  of  the  soul." l  But  he  uses  other  terms, 
such  as  "life,"  "light,"  "God,"  "the  Holy,  Ghost,"  "Pan," 
"Fortune,"  "Minerva,"  "Proteus."  He  has  added  one 
term  to  the  vocabulary  of  pantheism,  which  merits  partic- 
ular notice.  "  All  the  universe  over,"  says  he,  "  there  is 

i  Essays  (Boston,  Phillips,  Sampson,  &  Co.,  1858),  Vol.  II.,  p.  19. 

18 


274          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

but  one  thing,  this  old  Two-Face,  creator-creature,  mind- 
matter,   right-wrong,   of  which   any   proposition    may   be 
affirmed  or  denied." l     Old  Two-Face,  forsooth ! 
F£»!>?WO~     We  fancy  that  at  such  a  designating  as  this  of 
the  absolute  and  sole  reality,  even  Hegel's  hair 
would  have  bristled.     But  the  speculative  views  of  Emer- 
son will  not  be  obscure,  I  think,  as  we  go  forward  in  our 
inquiry,  whatever  may  happen  to  be  his  phraseology. 
I  shall,  in  the  first  place,  present  passages  from  Emer- 
son's writings  which  lay  down  the  doctrine  of 
Comprehen-  pantheism  in   its   more   creneric  forms.     What 

give  state- 
ments of        words,  for  instance,  could  utter  the  doctrine  of 

pantheism. 

Spinoza  more  decisively  than  these  ?  "  Under 
all  this  running  sea  of  circumstance,  whose  waters  -ebb 
and  flow  with  perfect  balance,  lies  the  aboriginal  abyss  of 
real  Being.  Essence,  or  God,  is  not  a  relation,  or  a  part, 
but  the  whole.  Being  is  the  vast  affirmative,  excluding 
negation,  self-balanced,  and  swallowing  up  all  relations, 
parts  and  times  within  itself.  Nature,  virtue,  truth,  are 
the  influx  from  thence."2  Or  we  might  take  this:  "The 
philosophical  perception  of  identity  through  endless  muta- 
tions, makes  man  know  the  Proteus." 3  Or  the  following 
might  be  confidently  relied  on  to  sustain  our  position: 
"  The  ultimate  fact  we  reach  on  every  topic,  is  the  resolu- 
tion of  all  into  the  ever-blessed  ONE.  Com- 
AH  things  merce,  husbandry,  hunting,  whaling,  war,  elo- 
quence, personal  weight,  are  somewhat;  and 
engage  my  attention  as  examples  of  its  presence  and 
action." 4  In  his  essay  on  History  Emerson  says,  "  There 

i  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  236.  a  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  103. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  28.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  61,  62. 


•• 

PANTHEISM.  275 

is   one    mind   common  to  all  individual  men.     Whoever 

hath  access  to  this  universal  mind  is   a  party 

to  all  that  is  or  can  be  done,  for  this  is  the  only 

and  sovereign  agent."  l     And  the  poetical  motto,  prefixed 

to  that  essay,  is,  — 

s  «'  There  is  no  great  and  no  small 

To  the  soul  that  maketh  all ; 
And  where  it  cometh  all  things  are, 
And  it  cometh  everywhere." 

Again  he  says,  "  I  am  much  struck  in  literature  by  the 
appearance  that  one  person  wrote  all  the  books ;  there  is 
such  equality  and  identity  both  of  judgment  and 
point  of  view  in  the  narrative,  that  it  is  plainly 
the  work  of  one  all-seeing  all-hearing  gentleman.     When 
I  read  Proclus  it  is  not  Proclus,  but  a  piece  of  nature  and 
fate  that  I  explore.     It  is  a  greater  joy  to  see  the  author's 
author,  than  himself."  2     The  discovery  that  the  author  of 
Proclus,  and  of  every  other  writer,  is  a  "  gentleman,"  hardly 
equals  in  sublimity  the  announcement  of  the  ancient  sage 
that    "  God   is    a   geometer,"    but    it   certainly 
leaves   us    in  no   doubt   as   to   the    speculative     God  a  £en- 

tleman. 

views  of  our  modern  philosopher.  Emerson 
further  says,  "  Virtue  is  the  incoming  of  God  himself,  or 
absolute  existence."  3  "  God  is  the  all-fair.  Truth,  and 
goodness,  und  beauty,  are  but  different  faces  of  the  same 
all." 4  "  Cause  and  effect  are  two  sides  of  one  fact." 5 
"The  soul  strives  amain  to  live  and  work  through  all 

1  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  3.  2  Tbid.,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  224,  225. 

s  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  109. 

4  Miscellanies,  (Boston,  Phillips,  Sampson,  &  Co.,  1858),  p.  22. 
«  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  285. 


276  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

things.  It  would  be  the  only  fact." l  "  The  true  doctrine 
of  omnipresence  is,  that  God  reappears  with  all  his  parts 
in  every  moss  and  cobweb." 2  Emerson's  theory  of  love, 
with  all  the  charms  of  social  and  domestic  life  to  which  it 
gives  birth,  is  purely  pantheistic.  It  is  the 
omnipresent  divinity  in  the  two  sexes,  which, 
revealed  as  the  positive  and  negative  poles  of  a  resistless 
magnetism,  draws  them  together.  Why  does  man  invol- 
untarily love  a  beautiful  woman  ?  Because  she  "  suggests 
to  him,"  says  our  author,  "the  presence,  of  that  which  is 
within  the  beauty.  Beholding  the  traits  of  the  divine 
beauty,  the  lover  ascends  to  .the  highest  beauty,  to  the 
love  and  knowledge  of  the  divinity."3  He  gives  a  defini- 
tion of  prayer  equally  novel,  and  equally  faithful  to  his 
constant  doctrine :  "  Prayer  is  the  contemplation  of  the 
facts  of  life  from  the  highest  point  of  view.  It 

Prayer. 

is  the  soliloquy  of  the  beholding  and  jubilant 
soul.  It  is  the  spirit  of  God  pronouncing  his  works 
good." 4  This  language  is  a  perfect  rendering  of  the 
meaning  of  Spinoza  where  he  says,  "  The  intellectual  love 
of  the  mind  towards  God  is  part  of  the  infinite  love  where- 
with God  loves  himself."5  Prayer,  as  thus  strangely  de- 
fined, is  not  the  offering  of  petitions  by  man  to  his  Maker ; 
it  includes  all  action  of  whatever  form.  "  The  prayer  of 
the  farmer  kneeling  in  his  field  to  weed  it,  the  prayer  of 
the  rower  kneeling  with  the  stroke  of  his  oar,  are  true 
prayers  heard  throughout  nature."  e  It  is  not  a  person, 
but  the  impersonal  soul  of  the  universe,  which  prays ;  and 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  93.  2  Ibid.,  p.  91. 

s  Ibid.,  pp.  164,  105.  *  Ibid.,  p.  68. 

s  Ethics,  Pt.  V.,  Prop.  XXXVI.  e  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  68. 


PANTHEISM.  277 

what  we  call  our  consciousness  of  praying  is  but  the  talk- 
ing of  that  soul  to  itself. 

This  definition  of  prayer  leads  me  to  notice  what  the 
author  has  to  say  on  the  subject  of  personality.  His  views 
here  are  perfectly  at  one  with  those  of  the  most 
famous  pantheists..  "I  wish  to  speak  with^all 
respect  of  persons,"  says  he,  "  but  sometimes  I 
must  pinch  myself  to  keep  and  preserve  the  due 
decorum.  They  melt  so  fast  into  each  other,  that  they 
are  like  grass  and  trees,  and  it  needs  an  effort  to  treat 
them  as  individuals.  Though  the  uninspired  man  cer- 
tainly finds  persons  a  conveniency  in  household  matters, 
the  divine  man  does  not  respect  them :  he  sees  them  as 
racks  of  clouds,  or  a  fleet  of  ripples  which  the  wind  drives 
over  the  surface  of  the  waters."  l  "  We  learn  that  God 
is;  that  he  is  in  me;  and  that  all  things  are  shadows  of 
him.  The  idealism  of  Berkeley  is  a  crude  statement  of  the 
idealism  of  Jesus ;  and  that  is  a  crude  statement  of  the 
fact,  that  all  nature  is  a  rapid  efflux  of  goodness  executing 
and  organizing  itself."2  "From  within  or  from  behind, 
a  light  shines  through  us  upon  things,  and  makes  us 
aware  that  we  are  nothing,  but  the  light  is  all." 8  "  Let  us 
go  for  the  universal ;  for  the  magnetism,  not  for  the  nee- 
dles. Human  life  and  its  persons  are  poor  empirical 
pretensions.  A  personal  influence  is  an  ignis 
fatuus.  The  great  gods  of  fame  fade  before  the  f^u's"18 
eternal." 4  "  This  deep  power  in  which  we 
exist,  and  whose  beatitude  is  all  accessible  to  us,  is  not 
only  self-sufficing  and  perfect  every  hour,  but  the  act  of 

i  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  227.  2  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  281. 

s  Ibid.,  p.  246.  *  Ibid.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  221. 


278  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

seeing  and  the  thing  seen,  the  seer  and  the  spectacle,  the 
subject  and  the  object,  are  one."  l  "  The  larger  experience 
of  man  discovers  the  identical  nature  appearing  through 
them  all.  Persons  themselves  acquaint  us  with  the  im- 
personal. In  all  conversation  between  two  persons,  tacit 
reference  is  made,  as  to  a  third  party,  to  a  common  nature. 
That  third  party,  or  common  nature,  is  not  social  ;  it  is 

impersonal,  it  is  God."  2  "  I  clap  my  hands  in 
£)°ndaimpcr"  infantine  joy  and  amazement,  before  the  first 

opening  to  me  of  this  august  magnificence,  old 
with  the  love  and  homage  of  innumerable  ages,  young 
with  the  life  of  life,  the  sunbright  Mecca  of  the  desert,"  3 
It  is  sufficiently  clear,  in  the  light  of  these  ex- 

tracts,  that  I  do  Emerson  no  wrong  in  ranking 


him  with  the  disciples  of  Spinoza.  On  the  con- 
trary, should  I  not  be  doing  him  a  most  palpable  injustice 
did  I  deny  to  him  the  pantheistic  doctrine  which  he  so 
plainly  and  earnestly  professes  ?  Our  respect  for  him  as  a 
thinker  should  lead  us  to  yield  him  the  position  he  has  so 
distinctly  taken,  and  which  he  defines  almost  in  the  exact 
terms  of  the  most  famous  teachers  of  pantheism.  A  writer 
who  declares  that  persons  are  "poor  empiricnl  pretensions," 
ripples  on  the  ocean  of  real  being  ;  who  says  that  subject 
and  object,  the  seer  and  the  thing  seen,  are  one  ;  who 
affirms  that  the  personal  brings  us  to  the  impersonal,  which 
is  God,  or  the  sole  reality,  —  this  writer  must  be  set  down 
as  a  pantheist,  or  language  may  mean  just  the  opposite  of 
what  it  plainly  asserts,  and  Hegel  himself  was  not  a 
Hegelian,  nor  Spinoza  a  Spinozist. 

But  the  nature  of  Emerson's  doctrine  will  be  even  more 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  245.         *  Ibid.,  p.  252,          ^  Ibi(L,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  73,  74. 


PANTHEISM.  279 

manifest,  as  we  go  forward,  in  the  second  place, 
to  consider  his  method.  Is  this  subjective  mShod.n>B 
or  objective  ?  Where  does  he  find  the  one 
absolute  reality  he  so  firmly  believes  in  ?  So  far  as  this 
question  goes,  he  is  more  true,  I  think,  to  the  subjective 
and  transcendental  method,  than  either  Goethe  or  Carlyle. 
He  finds  the  absolute  essence  of  things,  not  in  society, 
with  the  German  ;  nor  in  great  men,  with  the  Scotchman  ; 
but  in  each  individual  consciousness.  In  this  respect  he 
is  nearly,  if  not  quite,  on  the  same  ground  as  Fichte. 
True,  there  is  at  times  a  gush  of  hero-worship,  reminding 
one  of  Carlyle;  but  he  looks  steadily  within  for  the 
primary  advent  of  divinity.  The  divineness  of  the  out- 
ward is  but  secondary,  the  shadow  of  the  true  God.  It  is 
reflected  deity,  either  conscious  or  unconscious.  "  Plants 
are  the  young  of  the  world,"  says  he,  "  vessels  of  health 
and  vigor ;  but  they  grope  ever  upward  towards  conscious- 
ness ;  the  trees  are  imperfect  men,  and  seem  to  bemoan 
their  imprisonment,  rooted  in  the  ground.  The  maples 
and  ferns  are  still  uncorrupt ;  yet  no  doubt,  when  they 
come  to  consciousness,  they  too  will  curse  and  swear." l 
"Every  animal  of  the  barn-yard,  the  field,  and  the  forest, 
of  the  earth  and  of  the  waters  that  are  under  the  earth, 
has  contrived  to  get  a  footing  and  to  leave  the 
print  of  its  features  and  form  in  some  one  or 
other  of  these  upright,  heaven-speaking  faces."  2 
Such  remarks,  occurring  in  various  places,  show 
.that  Emerson  holds  to  the  doctrine  of  identity,  as  taught 
by  Schelling ;  but  he  has  chosen  not  to  state  that  doctrine, 
for  tbe  most  part,  in  the  Schellingian  form.  His  method 

»  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  177.  a  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  20. 


280          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

is  subjective  and  ideal.  His  private  consciousness  is  the 
door  through  which  he  passes  to  the  universal  fact.  That 
personality  with  which  we  flatter  ourselves,  is  an  illusion 
while  considered  as  the  self.  It  is  an  efflux  of  the  Eternal 
One ;  and  to  recognize  it  as  such  is  to  behold,  at  a  glance, 
all  that  is,  or  was,  or  ever  can  be.  "  Standing  on  the  bare 
ground,"  says  our  author,  "my  head  uplifted  into  infinite 
space,  all  mean  egotism  vanishes.  I  become  a 
egotism?  transparent  eye-ball ;  I  am  nothing ;  I  see  all ; 
the  currents  of  the  universal  being  circulate 
through  me ;  I  am  part  or  parcel  of  God."  l  Thius  it  ap- 
pears that  the  charge  of  egotism,  which  ignorant  readers 
have  so  often  made  against  Emerson,  is  thoroughly  unjust 
and  false.  The  object  of  his  adoration  is  not  the  empirical 
self,  but  the  transcendental,  —  by  which  "self,"  as  ordi- 
narily understood,  is  swallowed  up.  All  his  egotism  is  an 
entire  absorption  of  the  finite  ego  into  the  eternal. 

Man,  according  to  our  author,  is  nothing  real  and  sub- 
stantial, but  only  a  passing  phenomenon,  the  form  in  which 
the  universal  fact  is  for  the  time  being  self-conscious. 
"Within  man  is  the  soul  of  the  whole;  the  wise  silence; 
the  universal  beauty,  to  which  every  part  and  particle  is 
equally  related;  the  eternal  OXE."  2  It  is  Spinoza  who 
says,  "  We  feel  and  are  persuaded  that  we  are 
Sr?nan!on  eternal ;"  and  the  language  of  Emerson,  often- 
times, is  but  an  echo  of  these  words.  "The 
soul  in  man  is  an  immensity  not  possessed,  and  that  can- 
not be  possessed,"  3  says  he.  "The  heart  in  thee  is  the. 
heart  of  all ;  not  "&  valve,  not  a  wall,  not  an  intersection  is 
there  anywhere  in  nature,  but  .one  blood  rolls  uninterrupt- 

i  Miscellanies,  p.  8.  2  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  245.  3  Ibid.,  p.  246.- 


PANTHEISM.  281 

edly  in  endless  circulation,  through  all  men ;  as  the  water 
of  the  globe  is  all  one  sea,  and,  truly  seen,  its  tide  is  one." l 
"  Of  this  pure  nature  every  man  is  at  some  time  sensible. 
Language  cannot  paint  it  with  his  colors.  It  is  too  subtle. 
It  is  indefinable,  unmeasurable,  but  we  know  that  it  per- 
vades and  contains  us.  We  know  that  all  spiritual  being 
is  in  man."  2  "  The  soul's  communication  of  truth  is  the 
highest  event  in  nature,  since  it  then  does  not  give  some- 
what from  itself,  but  gives  itself,  or  passes  into  and  becomes 
that  man  whom  it  enlightens  ;  or,  in  proportion  to  the 
truth  he  receives,  it  takes  him  into  itself."  3  As  the  soul, 
which  is  the  divine  and  universal  fact,  is  present  in  all 
persons,  making  -them  whatsoever  they  are,  "  so  it  is  in 
every  period  of  life.  It  is  adult  already  in  the  infant  man. 
In  my  dealing  with  my  child,  my  Latin  and  my  Greek,  my 
accomplishments  and  my  money  stead  me  nothing.  If  I 
am  wilful  he  sets  up  his  will  'against  mine ;  but  if  I  re- 
nounce my  will,  and  act  for  the  soul,  setting  that  up  as 
umpire  between  us  two,  out  of  his  young  eyes  looks  the 
same  soul." 4 

But  the  view  of  individual  man,  which  we  find  in  Emer- 
son's works,  is  no  more  pantheistic  than  his  definition  of 
genius.  He  argues  that  any  unusual  elevation 

The  va- 

of  spirit,  religious  or  artistic,  is  purely  an  influx      rietics  of 

genius 

of  the  divine  essence  in  the  form  of  what  we      forms  of 

the  diyine 

call   our   mind.     Such  is   all  inspiration ;    that     conscious- 
ness. 

of  Paul,  of   George   Fox,  of  Swedenborg,   of 

Michael    Angelo.      "The    revivals     of    the     Calvinistic 

churches,  the  experiences  of  the    Methodists,"   he   says, 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  267.  2  Ibid.,  p.  247. 

a  Ibid.,  p.  255.  *  Ibid.,  p.  254. 


282          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

"  are  varying  forms  of  that  shudder  of  awe  and  delight 
\vith  which  the  individual  soul  always  mingles  with  the 
universal  soul."  1  The  natural  genius  of  these  Calvinists 
and  Methodists,  that  is,  is  religious.  They  have  a  special 
aptitude  for  receiving  the  divine  substance  in  that  form 
which  constitutes  pious  enthusiasm.  Their  mistake  is  in 
believing  that  God  is  outside  of  themselves,  and  that  their 
excitement  is  anything  more  than  a  transient  shadow  of 
him.  His  going  forth  into  self-consciousness  is  what  makes 
the  "  revival,"  as  it  makes  all  that  we  admire,  or  love,  or 
wonder  at  in  human  achievement.  "When  we  have 
broken  our  God  of  tradition,  and  ceased  from  our  God  of 
rhetoric,  then  may  God  fire  the  heart  with  his  presence. 
It  is  the  doubling  of  the  heart  itself;  nay,  the  infinite  en- 
largement of  the  heart  with  a  power  of  growth  to  a  new 
infinity  on  every  side."  2  "  An  individual  is  an  enclosure. 
Time  and  space,  liberty  and  necessity,  truth  and  thought, 
are  left  at  large  no  longer.  Now,  the  universe  is  a  close 
or  pound.  All  things  exist  in  the  man  tinged  with  the 
manners  of  his  soul."3  "Each  man  has  his  vocation. 
The  talent -is  the  call.  This  talent  and  this  call  depend  on 
his  organization,  or  the  mode  in  which  the  general  soul 
incarnates  itself  in  him." 4  "  The  maker  of  all  things  and 
all  ^persons  stands  behind  us,  and  casts  his  dread  om- 
niscience through  Vis  over  things."  5  "  The  wit  of  man,  his 
strength,  his  grace,  his  tendency,  his  art,  is  the  grace  and 
presence  of  God." 6  Any  fresh  generalization  of  philoso- 
phy "  is  always  a  new  influx  of  the  divinity  into  the  mind." 
And  "  Empedocles  undoubtedly  spoke  a  truth  of  thought," 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  257.         *  Ibid.,  p.  26fi.  a  ibid.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  97. 

«  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  126.  5  Ibid.,  p.  255.  "  Miscellanies,  p.  18rt. 


PANTHEISM.  283 

says  Emerson,  "  when  he  said,  '  I  am  God.' "  l  Not  while 
we  go  searching  abroad,  but  while  we  stay  at  home,  keep- 
ing the  door  of  consciousness  open,  the  great  spirit  of  the 
universe  not  only  comes  in,  but  makes  that  into  which  it 
comes ;  not  only  sups  with  us,  but  is  that  with  which  it 
sups.  He  constitutes  our  private  thought,  in  the  depths 
of  which  he  is  manifested.  "God  enters  by  a  private 
door  into  every  individual ;  " 2  and  this  melting  of  subject 
and  object  into  a  single  consciousness,  is  a  blessed  experi- 
ence, which  words  must  forever  labor  in  vain  to  utter. 
."  Ineffable ,  is  the  union  of  man  and  God  in  every  act  of 
the  soul.  The.  simplest  person,  who  in  his  integrity  wor- 
ships God,  becomes  Goxl ;  yet  forever  and  ever  the  influx 
of  this  better  and  universal  self  is  new  and  unsearch- 
able." 3 

Having  seen  that  Emerson's  God  is  the  same  as  Spi- 
noza's, and  that,  like  Spinoza,  he  finds  it  in  his  private  con- 
sciousness, let  us,  in  the  third  place,  see  what  he  has  to  say 
of  its  evolution  or  "  becoming."  What  is  the  law 

Teaches  the 

of  this  evolution  ?     Does  the  noumenon  mirror    pantheistic 

fatalism. 

itself  in  phenomena  freely,  choosing  whether 
it  will  or  not,  or  under  conditions  of  the  sternest  neces- 
sity ?  Here  also,  as  we  might  expect,  our  author  teaches 
the  pantheistic  fatalism.  He  does  not  believe  in  a  freedom 
of  will  involving  the  power  of  alternate  choice.  The  law 
of  man's  action  is,  to  his  view,  the  same  as  that  of  nature, 
—  spontaneous  and  inevitable.  Whatever  we  do,  we  can- 
not do  otherwise.  Any  theory  of  a  moral  government 
which  involves  accountability,  and  which  is  sustained  by 
penalties  and  rewards,  he  regards  as  chimerical,  —  a  fancy 

i  Miscellanies,  p.  1UO.  2  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  297.  »  Ibid.,  p.  265. 


284          HALfc  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

of  certaia  sects  in  theology.  The  only  liberty  is  sponta- 
neity ;  and  the  perfection  of  this  automatic  activity  is  in 
its  absolute  necessity.  The  universe  is  but  one,  and  for- 
ever acts  and  reacts  upon  itself,  compassed  in  the  folds  of 
an  eternal  fate.  This  necessity  of  action,  whose  endless 
coil  lies  at  the  centre  of  our  being,  is  the  freedom  which, 
when  joyfully  yielded  to,  makes  us  free  indeed. 

But  on  this  topic,  as  on  others,  I  shall  not  assume  to 
present  Emerson  in  my  own  words,  so  much  as  in  the  lan- 
guage which  he  himself  has  largely  used.     In  his  essay  on 
fate  he  says,  "  We  trace  fate  in  matter,  mind, 

All  tilings 

subject  to       and  morals.     A  part  of  fate  is  the  freedom  of 

fate. 

man."  l  "  The  day  of  days,  the  great  day  of 
the  feast  of  life,  is  that  in  which  the  inward  eye  opens  to 
the  unity  of  things;  to  the  omnipresence  of  law;  sees 
that  what  is  must  be,  and  ought  to  be,  or  is  the  best." 2 
He  quotes  with  approbation  the  stanza  of  the  Mohamme- 
dan poet, — 

"  On  two  days  it  steads  not  to  run  from  thy  grave, 

The  appointed,  and  the  unappointed  day ; 
On  the  first  neither  balm  nor  physician  can  save, 
Nor  thee,  on  the  second,  the  universe  slay."3 

"A  man's  power,"  says  he  in  the  same  essay,  "is  hooped 
about  by  a  necessity,  which,  by  many  experiments,  he 
touches  on  every  side,  till  he  learns  its  arc." 4  "A  breath 
of  will  blows  eternally  through  the.  universe  of  souls  in 
the  direction  of  the  right  and  the  necessary." 5  "  Let  us 
build  altars  to  the  blessed  unity,  which  holds  nature  and 
souls  m  perfect  solution,  and  compels  every  atom  to  serve 

1  Conduct  of  Life  (Boston,  Ticknor  &  Fields,  1800),  pp.  18,  19. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  21.  3  Ibid.,  p.  3.  «  Ibid.,  p.  10.  B  ibid.,  p.  23. 


PANTHEISM.  285 

an  universal  end.  Let  us  build  altars  to  the  beautiful 
necessity,  which  secures  that  all  is  made  of  one  piece ; 
that  plaintiff  and  defendant,  friend  and  enemy,  animal 
and  plant,  food  and  eater,  are  of  one  kind."1  A  severe 
critic  might  be  tempted  to  infer,  from  the  way  in  which 
the  doctrine  of  unity  is  here  carried  out,  things  not  a  little 
shocking  to  our  author's  sensibilities.  If  animal  and 
plant,  food  and  eater  are  one,  our  horror  at  the  deed  of 
the  cannibal,  who  slays  his  guest  and  makes  a  meal  of  the 
victim,  is  wholly  out  of  place.  We  all  are  continually 
living  upon  some  form  of  the  blessed  unity,  either  vegeta- 
ble or  animal ;  nor  can  we  destroy  any  life,  in  any  realm 
of  nature  below  us,  save  by  a  kind  of  murder  and  suicide. 
There  is  not  one  flesh  of  men  and  another  of  birds,  as 
Paul  thought,  but  all  creatures  are  the  same  flesh,  and 
beast  and  herb  are  one ;  and  altars  should  be  built  to  the 
beautiful  necessity  which  secures  this  eternal  fact. 

Everything  being  what  it  is  by  that  inevitable  fate  which 
rules  the  undivided  whole,  no  person,  according  to   Em- 
erson, is  in  the  last  analysis  responsible  for  his  own  char- 
acter.    The    case    of  politicians,  who    change  their  prin- 
ciples as  the  influences  brought  to  bear  on  them  change, 
is  adduced;   and  their  inconsistencies  are  accounted  for 
purely  on  the  ground  of  natural  and  irresistible 
laws.     "  The  rabid  democrat,"  says  our  author,    <?000°thtrcan 
"as   soon    as   he  is  senator  and  rich  man,  has     JedoS!11 
ripened  beyond  the  possibility  of  sincere  radi- 
calism, and  unless  he  can  resist  the  sun,  he  must  be  con- 
servative the  remainder  of  his  days."  2     Could  any  doc- 
trine be  more  comforting  than  this  to  the  outlawed  rebel, 

i  Conduct  of  Life,  pp.  41, 42.  2  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  23(5. 


286          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

who  has  sought  to  destroy  the  government  of  his  country  ? 
Though  he  stood  high  in  the  confidence  of  the  public,  and 
was  the  trusted  servant  of  the  nation,  so  that  his  treachery 
drew  immeasurable  ruin  after  it,  yet  he  has  no  occasion  to 
reproach  himself;  he  was  ripened  into  the  wickedness  as 
apples  are  ripened.  "The  only  sin,"  says-  this  apologist 
for  wrong-doing,  "is  limitation."1  At  times  he  seems 
almost  to  regret  the  fatalism  in  which  he  so  firmly  be- 
lieves, as  where  he  says,  "  I  would  gladly  be  moral,  and 
keep  due  metes  and  bounds,  which  I  dearly  love,  and  allow 
the  most  to  the  will  of  man ;  but  I  have  set  my  heart  on 
honesty,  and  I  can  see  nothing  at  last  in  success  or  failure 
but  more  or  less  of  vital  force  supplied  from  the  eternal." 2 
"Character  is  nature  in  the  highest  form."3  ': The  same 
law  of  eternal  procession  ranges  all  that  we  call  the  vir- 
tues, and  extinguishes  each  in  the  light  of  a  better." 4 
"  What  avails  it  to  fight  with  the  eternal  laws  of  mind, 
which  adjust  the  relations  of  all  persons  to  each,  by  the 
mathematical  measure  of  their  beings  and  havings." 5 
u  We  talk  of  deviations  from  natural  life,  as  if  artificial 
life  were  not  also  natural.  The  smoothest-curled  courtier 
in  the  boudoirs  of  a  palace  has  an  animal  nature,  rude  and 
aboriginal  as  a  white  bear,  omnipotent  to  its  own  ends, 

and  is  directly  related  there,  amid  essences  and 
urai!lfe  nat  billets-doux,  to  Himmaleh  mountain-chains  and 

the  axis  of  the  globe." 6  "  As  children  in  their 
play  run  behind  each  other,  and  seize  one  by  the  ears  and 
make  him  walk  before  them,  so  is  the  spirit  our  unseen 
pilot.  All  art  is  a  portion  of  history ;  a  stroke  drawn  in 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.  p.  279.     2  Ibid.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  71.      »  Ibid.,  p.  106. 

*  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  285.        5  Ibid.,  p.  134.  •  Ibid.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  177. 


rhetor' 


PANTHEISM.  287 

the  portrait  *of  that  inevitable,  fate,  perfect  and  beautiful, 
according  to  whose  ordinations  all  beings  advance  to  their 
beatitude."  1 

Now,  if  Emerson  were  wont  to  deal  in  tropes  and  rhe- 
torical flourishes,  we  might  abate  somewhat  from  the  pal- 
pable force  of  his  words.  But  he  is  a  literalist.  He  con- 
tends, as  we  have  already  seen,  that  those  who  believe  in 
a  personal  God,  and  hold  that  they  might  act  otherwise 
than  they  do,  are  deceived  by  their  rhetoric. 
Even  his  poetry,  he  claims,  is  the  exact  Ian- 
guage  of  philosophy.  When  he  says,  "  Every  . 
one  must  act  after  his  kind,  be  he  asp  or  angel," 
he  can  mean  nothing  less  than  universal  "fatalism.  The 
passages  I  have  quoted  from  him  on  this  subject  are  not 
to  be  taken  figuratively,  but  literally.  We  are  to  under- 
stand him  as  meaning  just  what  his  words  plainly  imply, 
when  he  says,  "  I  have  been  floated  into  this  thought,  this 
hour,  this  connection  of  events,  by  secret  currents  of 
might  and  mind;  and  my  ingenuity  and  wilfulness  have 
not  thwarted,  have  not  aided  to  any  appreciable  degree."2 
The  author  shows  a  desire  to  see  his  views  adopted  by 
other  persons.  And  here  it  is,  as  we  see  the  case,  that  his 
doctrine  of  fatalism  presses.  For  why  attempt  to  make 
disciples,  we  say,  of  beings  whom  an  iron  necessity  rules 
in  every  act?  But  he  anticipates  our  criticism,  saying, 
"If  you  say,  'the  acceptance  of  the  vision  is 
also  the  act  of  God,'  I  shall  not  seek  to  pen-  ^yttery*!  a 
etrate  the  mystery  ;  I  admit  the  force  of  what 
you  say."  °  His  utterances  of  doctrine,  and  all  his  con- 
duct, are  alike  the  forthputtings  of  an  eternal  fate,  and  he 

i  Miscellanies,  p.  201.     2  Essays,  Vol.  I,,  p.  298.     s  Miscellanies,  pp.  212,  213. 


288          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

has  only  this  account  to  give  of  them.  His  'struggle  to 
make  others  believe  as  he  believes  is  unnatural,  since  God 
himself  is  in  every  instance  both  master  and  disciple ;  and 
this  pantheism,  which  he  offers  as  a  substitute  for  our  tra- 
ditional faith,  is  at  last  confessed  to  be  as  inexplicable  as 
anything  in  Calvinism  !  A  part  of  fate  -  are  his  writings 
and  all  his  wise  sayings.  "  The  universal  nature,  too  [ 
strong  for  the  petty  nature  of  the  bard,  sits  on  his  neck,  tf 
and  writes  through  his  hand;  so  that  when  he  seems  to 
vent  a  mere  caprice  and  wild  romance,  the  issue  is  an 
exact  allegory."1  "By  virtue  of  tliis  inevitable  nature,, 
private  will  is  overpowered,  and,  maugre  our  efforts  or  our 
imperfections,  your  genius  will  speak  for  you,  and  mine  for 
me.  That  which  we  are,  we  shall  teach,  not  voluntarily, 
but  involuntarily.  Thoughts  come  into  -our  minds  by 
avenues  we  never  left  open,  and  thoughts  go  out  of  our 
minds  through  avenues  we  never  voluntarily  opened." 2 

Having  seen  what  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  Emerson 
is,  in  its  substance,  method,  and  law,  let  us  next 

The  objective 

world  in  the  consider  some  of   the   conclusions  to  which   it 

light,  of  Em- 
erson's phi-    leads  mm,  within  the  two  great  realms  of  nature 

losophy. 

and  history.  The  soul  of  all  -things,  found  pri- 
marily in  his  own  consciousness,  and  forever  acting  within 
the  ring  of  necessity,  mirrors  itself  forth,  through  him, 
under  the  forms  of  mind  and  matter.  Here  we  have,  with 
hardly  a  shade  of  difference,  Spinoza's  infinite  attributes 
of  thought  and  extension.  History  and  nature  are  not 
radically  distinct.  They  are,  the  one  more,  and  the  other 
less,  vivid  manifestations  of  the  absolute  essence  of  all 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  30.  .  *  Ibid.,  p.  260. 


PANTHEISM.  280 

things.  In  human  history  the  universal  soul  is  still  self- 
conscious  ;  whereas  in  everything  below  the  plane  of  his- 
tory its  reflex  is  too  faint  to  produce  consciousness.  His- 
tory is  God  conscious;  nature  is  God*  struggling  towards 
consciousness.  All  our  study,  in  these  two  departments 
of  knowledge,  is  God  looking  at  himself;  beholding  as  it 
we're  his  own  image  reflected  to  him  in  a  mirror.  All  re- 
corded science,  and  the  annals  of  the  ages,  are  his  autobi- 
ography;  the  naturalist,  or  historian,  being  but  the  pen 
with  which  he  traces  a  record  of  his  own  action  and  reac- 
tion^ in  one  or  more  of  the  successive  stadia.  Our  author 
might  therefore,  in  strict  conformity  to  his  doctrine,  bring 
the  whole  objective  world  under  a  single  treatment.  But 
he  lias  chosen  to  treat  nature  and  history  separately;  and 
hence  in  giving  his  views  I  shall  regard  the  distinction. 

Taking  up  first  his  view  of  history,  we  find  that  he 
holds  it*  to  be  simply  a  conscious  reflex  of  the  universal 
soul.  "The  soul,"  he  says,  "looketh  steadily  forward, 
creating  a  world  before  her,  leaving  worlds  behind  her. 
She  has  no  dates,  nor  rites,  nor  persons,  nor  specialties, 
nor  men.  The  soul  knows  only  the  soul-;  the 

T        />  i        n  i  1-1  History  a&- 

web  oi  events  is  the  flowing  robe  in  which  she   sorhcd  into 
is  clothed."  l     "  Everything  the  individual   sees 
without   him   corresponds   to   his    states   of  mind.      The 
primeval  world  I  can  dive  to  in  myself,  as  well  as  grope 
for  it  in  catacombs,  libraries,  and  the  broken  reliefs  and 
torsos  of  ruined  villas."2     "There  is   no  age,  or  state  of 
society,  or  mode  of  action  in  history,  to  which  there  is  not 
somewhat  corresponding  in  each  man's  life.     He  is  greater 
than  all  the  geography  and  all   the  governments  in  the 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  249.  2  Ibid.,  p.  21. 

19 


290  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

world.  I  can  find  Greece,  Asia,  Italy,  Spain,  and  the  Is- 
lands,—  the  genius  and  creative  principle  of  each  and  of 
all  eras  in  my  own  mind."1  "A  man  shall  be  the  temple 
of  fame.  I  shall  find  in  him  the  fore-world,  the  age  of 
gold,  the  apples  of  knowledge,  the  Argonautic  expedition, 
the  calling  of  Abraham,  the  building  of  the  temple,  the 
advent  of  Christ,  the  dark  ages,  the  revival  of  letters,  the 
Reformation,  the  discovery  of  new  lands,  the  opening  of 
new  regions  and  new  sciences.  He  shall  be  the  priest  of 
Pan,  and  bring  with  him  into  humble  cottages  the  blessing 
of  the  morning  stars  and  all  the  recorded  benefits  of  heaven 
and  earth."2  "The  advancing  man  discovers  how  deep  a 
property  he  has  in  literature,  in  all  fable  as  well  as  in  all 
history.  His  own  secret  biography  he  finds  in  lines  won- 
derfully intelligible  to  him,  dotted  down  before  he  was 
born.  One  after  another  he  comes  up  in  his  private  adven- 
tures with  every  fable  of  JEsop,  of  Homer,  of  Hafiz,  of 
Ariosto,  of  Chaucer,  of  Scott,  and  verifies  them 

All  litera- 

bk^raphy  with  his  own  head  and  hands."3  "Of  the  uni- 
ofeachman.  versri|  ui'md  each  individual  is  one  more  incar- 
nation. All  its  properties  consist  in  him."  4  "  Ail  litera- 
ture writes  the  biography  of  each  man.  Books,  monu- 
ments, pictures,  conversation,  are  portraits  in  which  he 
finds  the  lineaments  he  is  forming.  The  silent  and'  the 
eloquent  praise  him  and  accost  him,  and  he  is  stimulated 
wherever  he  moves  as  by  personal  allusions." 5  "  History 
is  an  impertinence  and  an  injury,  if  it  be  anything  more 
than  a  cheerful  apologue  or  parable  of  my  beirfg  and  be- 
coming." 6 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I,  pp.  7,  8,  9.  2  Ibid.,  p.  35.  3  iby.,  p.  -^. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  4.  5  ibid.,  p.  7.  •«  Ibid.,  p.  58. 


PANTHEISM.  m  291 

"  I  am  owner  of  the  sphere, 
Of  the  seven  stars  and  solar  year, 
Of  Caesar's  hand  ^and  Plato's  hrain, 
Of  Lord  Christ's  heart  and  Shakespeare's  strain."1 

"  How  easily  these  old  worships  of  Moses,  of  Zoroaster, 
of  Menu,  of  Socrates,  domesticate  themselves  in  the  mind! 
I  cannot  find  any  antiquity  in  them.  They  are  mine  as 
much  as  theirs." 2  "  Civil  and  natural  history,  the  history 
of  art  and  literature,  must  be  explained  from  individual 
history,  or  must  remain  words.  There  is  nothing  but  is 
related  to  us,  nothing  that  does  not  interest  us,  —  king- 
dom, college,  tree,  horse,  or  iron  shoe,  the  roots  of  all 
things  are  in  .man.  The  priestcraft  of  the  east  and  west; 
'of  the  Magian,  Brahman,  Druid,  and  Inca,  is  expounded 
in  the  individual's  private  life.  He  finds  Assyria  and  the 
mounds  of  Cholula  at  his  door,  and  himself  has  laid  the 
courses." 3 

Such  is  history,  according  to  Emerson  :  the  essence  of 
deity  or  reality  projected  forward  in  actual  events,  under 
the  forms  of  each  man's  private  consciousness.  If  this 
theory  of  the  subjective  essence  of  all  facts  be  true,  the 
author  has  acted  very  foolishly  when  he  has 
visited  different  parts  of  the  world,  and  read  A  Tactical 

result. 

tedious  volumes  of  antiquarian  lore,  to  get  a 
knowledge  of  mankind  in  present  and  former  times;  for  he 
held  within  him,  all  the  while,  everything  which  he  sought. 
Fireside  travels  are  a§  good  as  any,  and  as  literal,  though 
they  l)e  but  dreams,  if  the  roots  of  all  things  are  in  man. 
It  sometimes  happens  that  persons  cursed  with  a  prodi- 

1  Motto  to  Essay  on  History.  2  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  25. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  10,  25,  26. 


292  „         HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

gious  vanity,  or  with  that  defect  of  memory  which  consists 
in  remembering  too  much,  illustrate  our  author's  doctrine 
in  their  conversation  and  public  discourse,  —  recounting 
experiences  which  they  never  passed  through,  and  describ- 
ing scenes  in  parts  of  the  world  which  they  never  visited. 
They  are  simply  reducing  the  Emersonian  theory  to  prac- 
tice ;  yet  sensible  people  feel  constrained  to  regard  such 
talk  as  lying-)  and  those  whx>  have  fallen  into  the  habit  of 
thus  retailing  "impersonal"  experiences  are  held  to  be 
candidates  for  the  jail  or  the  madhouse.  A  pantheist  once 
pressed  this  subjective  theory  of  history  on  the  attention 
of  Nathanael  Emmons.  "Doctor,"  said  he,  "I  was  with 
Adam  and  Eve  in  the  garden  at  the  eating  of  the  apple." 
"  Yes,"  was  the  quick  reply  of  the  theologian,  "  I  have 
always  understood  that  a  third  person  was  present."  The 
justice  of  this  reply  is  equal  to  its  wit,  for  the  pronoun  I 
cannot  refer  to  an  impersonal  existence;  if  we  know  and 
are  persuaded  that  we  are  eternal,  as  Emerson  and  Spi- 
noza teach,  we  are  bound  to  have  a  distinct  and  personal 
remembrance  of  that  eternity. 

But  let  us  also  look  at  the  theory  of  nature,  which  our 
author  holds  On  the  basis  of  his  general  doctrine.     Nature 
is  the  universal  soul  projected  beyond  the  sphere,  of  self- 
consciousness.      God    is   the   great  light  whose 
ravs5  constantly  going  out  and  returning,  make 


DllL  all  things.  When  they  return  from  points  so 
near  as  to  awaken  consciousness,  they  make  history  ;  but 
wrhen  from  points  more  remote,  so  that  the  eternal  centre 
is  not  conscious  of  the  reflection,  they  make  nature.  This 
doctrine  will  easily  appear,  from  Emerson's  own  words. 
"  The  world,"  he  says,  "  proceeds  from  the  same  spirit  as 


PANTHEISM.  203 

man.  It  is  a  remoter  and  inferior  incarnation  of  God,  a 
projection  of  God  in  the  unconscious." l  "  We  see  the 
world  piece  by  piece,  as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  animal,  the 
tree;  but  the  whole,  of  which  these  are  the  shining  parts, 
is  the  soul." 2  "I  am  somehow  receptive  of  the  great 
soul,  and  thereby  I  do  overlook  the  sun  and  the  stars,  and 
feel  them  to  be  the  fair  accidents  and  effects  which  change 
and  pass.  More  and  move  the  surges  of  everlasting  nature 
enter  into  me.  Revering  the  soul,  man  will  come  to  see  that 
the7  world  is  the  perennial  miracle  which  the  soul  worketh. 
The  soul  calls  the  light  its  own ;  and  feels  that  the  grass 
grows  and  the  stone  falls;' by  a  law  interior  to,  and  depen- 
dent on,  its  nature."3  "Genius  detects  through  the  fly, 
through  the  caterpillar,  through  the  grub,  through  the  egg, 
the  constant  individual ;  through  countless  individuals,  tfie 
fixed  species;  through  many  species,  the  genus;  through 
all  genera, the  steadfast  type;  through  all  the  kingdoms  of 
organized  life,  the  eternal  unity.  Nature  is  a  mutable 
cloud,  which  is  always  and  never  the  same."4  "Nature  is 
the  opposite  of  the  soul,  answering  to  it  part  for  part.  One 
is  senl,  and  one  is  print.  Its  beauty  is  the  beauty  of  his 
mind  who  is  conscious  of  the  soul.  Its  laws  are  the  laws 
of  his  own  mind.  Nature  then  becomes  to  him  the  meas- 
ure of  his  attainments.  So  much  of  nature  as  he  is  ig- 
norant of,  so  much  of  his  own  mind  does  he  not  yet  pos- 
sess." 5  "  Build,  therefore,  your  own  world.  The  advan- 
cing spirit  shall  create  its  ornaments  along  its  path,  and 
carry  with  it  the  beauty  it  visits,  and  the  song  which 
enchants  it."6  "Man  filled  nature  with  his  overflowing 

i  Miscellanies  p.  62.  2  Essays,  Vol.  ].,  p.  245.  »  ibid.  p.  269. 

«  Ibid.,  p.  12.  c  Miscellanies  p.  63.      ,  «  Ibid.,  p.  74. 

'  f  \. 


294          OALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

currents ;  out  from  him  sprang  the  sun  and  moon.  The 
l:i ws  of  his  mind,  the.  periods  of  his  action,  externized 
themselves  into  day  and  night,  into  the  year  and  the  sea- 
sons." x  "The  world  is  a  divine  dream,  from  which  we 
may  presently  awake  to  the  glories  and  certainties  of 
day."2 

Emerson  represents  nature  as  the  soul  or  God  yet 
asleep ;  God  only  dreams  till  he  awakes  to  consciousness 
in  the  mind  of  man.  Man,  however,  is  not  real  save  as  he 
is  an  inlet  of  the  divine  essence.  It  is  not  the  empirical, 
but  the  transcendental  man ;  the  absolute  cause,  not  the 
effect,  that  he  means  when  he  says,  "A  man's  genius  de- 
termines for  him  the  character  of  the  universe."  3  "  Not 
in  nature,  but  in  man,  is  all  the  beauty  and  worth  he  sees. 
The  world  is  very  empty,  and  is  indebted  to  this  gilding, 
exalting  soul  for  all  its  pride. "  4  "  Out  of  the  human  heart 
go,  as  it  were,  highways  to  the  heart  of  every  object  in 
nature.  A  man  is  a  bundle  of  relations,  a  knot  of  roots, 
whose  flower  arid  fruitage  are  the  world."  5  "  Man  carries 
the  world  in  his  head,  the  whole  astronomy  and  chemistry 
suspended  in  a  thought."6  "Let  man,  then,  learn  that 
the  sources  of  nature  are  in  his  own  mind." 7  "  I  am  pres- 
ent at  the  sowing  of  the  seed  of  the  world.  With  a 
geometry  of  sunbeams,  the  soul  lays  the  foundations  of 
nature."8  "Nature  is  the  incarnation  of  a  thought,  and 
turns  to  a  thought  njiain,  as  ice  becomes  water 

The  world 

man  exter-     am|  gas.    The  world  is  mind  precipitated.     Man 
crystallized,  man  vegetative,  speaks  to  man  im- 

i  Miscellanies,  p.  09.  2  ibid.,  p.  60.  3  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  12H. 

<  Ibid.,  p.  132.  5  ibid.,  p.  32.  6  ibid.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  178. 

7  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  267.  «  Ibid.,  p.  314. 


PANTHEISM.  295 

personated." l  "  The  great  Pan  of  old,  who  was  clothed 
in  leopard  skin  to  signify  the  beautiful  variety  of  things 
and  the  firmament,  —  his  coat  of  stars,  —  was  but  thee,  O 
rich  and  various  man !  thou  palace  of  sight  and  sound, 
carrying  in  thy  senses  the  morning  and  the  night,  and  the 
unfathomable  galaxy ;  in  thy  brain  the  geometry  of  the 
city  of  God." 2 

Now  let  us  pause  and  breathe  a  moment,  and  consider 
whereto  the  author  has  brought  us  in  these  extracts.  If 
what  he  has  been  saying  be  true,  as  we  must  believe  that 
he  holds  it  to  be,  since  he  is  not  a  rhetorician,  but  states 
things  precisely  as  they  are  to  his  view,  then  it  is  plain 
that  all  our  knowledges  and  our  philosophy  need 
to  be  reconstructed  for  the  most  part,  whatever  ^"nauu-o"6 
may  be  the  case  of  his  own.  The  old  fable  of  kmmiedo-e. 
a  man  in  the  moon,  pales  before  this  declaration 
that  the  moon  is  in  every  man.  And  not  only  this,  but 
the  sun  and  stars,  and  other  very  formidable  objects,  quite 
too  numerous  to  mention,  are  a  part  of  the  original  furni- 
ture of  the  human  mind.  We  do  not  have  to  "stretch" 
our  minds  at  all,  as  good  Dr.  Watts  thought,  to  take  in 
sea  and  shore ;  for  all  nature  is  ours  before  we  are  born, 
and  we  carry  it  about  with  us  eternally  in  our  thoughts, 
knowing  it  to  the  same  extent  that  we  know  ourselves. 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  within  us  is  not  peace  and  joy  in 
the  Holy  Ghost,  as  the  Apostles  wrote  ;  it  is,  literally,  the 
firmament  and  its  galaxies,  with  the  earth  and  other 
planets,  and  empty  regions  between,  and  unmeasured 
spaces  beyond.  The  microcosm  contains  the  macrocosm. 
The  universe  lives,  and  moves,  and  has  its  being  in  man, 

1  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  190.  2  Miscellanies,  p.  107. 


296         HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TEUTH. 

and  is  the  stupendous  miracle  which  he  works  day  by 
day. 

It  is  but  just  to  call  attention  here  to  that  form  of  ideal- 
ism which  Emerson  holds,  in  order  that  his  views,  as  now 
given,  may  be  credited  with  such  rationality  as  they  have. 

He  sees  no  absurdity  in  the  theory  of  nature 
S™orfl°ot'8  Just  Presented ;  for  nature  is  to  him  not  real. 
Sateveryhilt  He  denies  the  existence,  or  at  least  assumes  the 
ideaiS.ve  non-existence  of  an  objective  world.  He  is  an 

idealist,  as  every  consistent  pantheist  is  at  last 
forced  to  be.  Pure  idealism  cannot  be  other  than  subjec- 
tive, while  it  rests  on  demonstration.  "Before  the  revela- 
tions of  the  soul,"  says  Emerson,  "  time,  space,  and  nature 
shrink  away." l  "  I  have  no  hostility  to  nature,  but  a 
child's  love.  I  expand  and  live  in  the  warm  day,  like  corn 
and  melons.  Children,  it  is  true,  believe  in  the  external 
world.  The  belief  that  it  appears  only,  is  an  after-thought ; 
but  with  culture  this  faith  will  as  surely  arise  as  did  the 
other."  2  "  Whether  nature  enjoy  a  substantial  existence 
without/  or  is  only  tlite  apocalypse  of  the  mind,  it  is  alike 
useful  and  alike  venerable  to  me.  Be  it  what  it  may,  it  is 
ideal  to  me,  sQ  long  as  I  cannot  try  the  accuracy  of  my 
senses.  A  noble  doubt  perpetually  suggests  itself,  whether 
nature  outwardly  exists." 3  '"  Perhaps  these  subjective 
lenses  have  a  creative  power ;  perhaps  there  are  no  objects. 
Once  we  lived  i  n  what  we  saw ;  now,  the  rapaciousness  of 
this  new  power  which  threatens  to  absorb  all  things,  en- 
gages us.  Natiire,  art,  persons,  letters,  religions,  —  objects, 
successively,  tunable  in,  and  are,  in  their  turn,  its  ideas. 
Nature  and  literature  are  subjective  phenomena ;  every 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  249.         2  Miscellanies,  pp.  56,  57.        »  Ibid.,  pp.  46,  45. 


PANTHEISM.  297 

evil  and  every  good  thing  is  a  shadow  we  cast."  l  "  Let 
us  no  longer  omit  our  homage  to  the  efficient  nature, 
natura  naturans,  the  quick  cause,  before  which  all  forms 
flee  as  the  driven  snows ;  itself  secret,  its  works  driven 
before  it  in  flocks  and  multitudes."  2  Man,  whose  eye  and 
step  fate  is  ever  turning  outward,  — 

"  Sees  full  before  him,  gliding  without  tread, 
An  image  with  a  glory  round  its  head; 
This  shade  he  worships  for  its  golden  hues, 
And  makes,  not  knowing,  that  which  he  pursues." 

The  pantheism  of  Emerson,  the  main  features 
of  which  i have  now  been   presented,   involves      Sacffin"' 
other  doctrines  more  specific,  and  entering  more 
directly  into  the  daily  conduct  of  life,  which  are  still  to  be 
considered. 

He  teaches,  as  one  legitimate  consequence  of  his  philos- 
ophy, the  duty  of  self-reverence.  This  is  not 
vulgar  egotism,  or  self-conceit.  In  the  popular  Beif-rever- 
sense  of  the  term,  no  one  is  less  an  egotist  than 
Emerson.  The  self,  regarded  as  an  effect,  a  person,  is, 
upon  his  theory,  absorbed  into  the  one  universal  soul  which 
fills  all  things.  For  the  sake  of  convenience  he  retains  the 
name,  but  only  the  name ;  meaning,  by  it,  the  impersonal 
divinity  which  rises  into  consciousness  under  this  fleeting 
form.  The  reverence  enjoined  in  the  Bible  involves  the 
being  of  a  personal  God,  and  guards  sacredly  the  person- 
ality of  the  worshipper;  but  that  enjoined  by  Emerson 
annihilates  the  worshipper,  and  leaves,  to  be  worshipped, 
only  an  impersonal  force,  besides  which  there  is  no  reality. 

i  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  77.  2  Ibid.,  p.  174. 


298  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

This  is  the  underlying  doctrine  when  he  tells  us  that 
"  nothing  is  at  last  sacred  but  the  integrity  of  our  own 
mind."  *  "  It  demands  something  godlike  in  him  who  has 
cast  off  the  common  motives  of  humanity,  and  has  ventured 
to  trust  himself  for  a  task-master.  High  be  his  heart, 
faithful  his  will,  clear  his  sight,  that  he  may  in  good  earnest 
be  doctrine,  society,  law  to  himself." 2  "  A  man  is  the 
word  made  flesh ;  and  the  moment  he  acts  for  himself, 
tossing  the  laws,  the  books,  idolatries,  and  customs  out  of 
the  window,  we  pity  him  no  more,  but  thank  and  revere 
him."  3  Since  man  is  wholly  a  manifestation  of  the  divine 
essence,  Emerson  admonishes  us  never  to  use  words  of 
self-reproach,  but  to  reverence  ourselves  at  all  times.  "  It 
is  the  highest  power  of  divine  moments,"  he  says,  "  that 
they  abolish  our  contritions  also ; " 4  —  words  which  remind 
us  of  Spinoza's  saying,  that  "  repentance  is  not  a  virtue,  or 
does  not  arise  from  reason,  but  he  who  repents  of  any  deed 
he  has  doiie  is  twice  miserable." 5  "  I  accuse  myself 
of  sloth  and  unprofitableness  day  by  day ;  but  when  these 
waves  of  God  flow  into  me,  I  no  longer  reckon  lost  time."  G 
"Let  a  man  know  his  worth,  and  keep  things  under  his 
feet.  Let  him  not  peep  or  steal,  or  skulk  up  and  down 
with  the  air  of  an  interloper,  in  the  world  which  exists  for 
him."  7  If  questioned  as  to  the  propriety  of  reverencing  a 
thing,  which  is  neither  subject  nor  object,  but  the  imper- 
sonal essence  of  both  forever  acting  under  fixed  laws  of 
fate,  our  author  has  nothing  to  say.  There  is  in  the  self 
the  impulse  to  worship  a  somewhat  which  there  makes 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  44.  2  ibid.,  p.  65.  8  Ibid.,  p.  67. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  287.  e  Ethics,  Part  IV.,  Prop.  HV. 

s  Essays,  Vol.  L,  p.  288.  1  ibid.,  p.  54. 


PANTHEISM.  290 

itself    known ;     and    this    impulse    should    be    joyfully 
obeyed. 

Emerson  urges,  as  involved  in  his  general 
doctrine,  the  duty  of  self-reliance,  —  still  using  fiance, 
the  term  "self"  in  a  transcendental  sense.  He 
has  an  entire  essay  on  this  duty,  the  motto  of  which  is,  Ne 
te  qucesiveris  extra  —  Seek  nothing  but  yourself.  "  Trust 
nothing  but  thyself :  great  men  have  always  done  so,  be- 
traying their  perception  that  the  absolutely  worthy  was 
seated  at  their  heart,  working  through  their  hands,  pre- 
dominating in  all  their  being." l  "  Entire  self-reliance 
belongs  to  the  intellect.  One  soul  is  a  counterpoise  of  all 
souls,  as  a  capillary  column  of  water  is  a  balance  for  the 
sea." 2  "  Obey  thyself.  That  which  shows  God  in  me, 
fortifies  me.  That  which  shows  God  out  of  me,  makes  me 
a  wart  and  a  wen."  3  "  Only  by  coming  again  to  them- 
selves, or  to  God  in  themselves,  can  men  grow  forever- 
more."  4  "The  true  Christianity,  a  faith  like  Christ's  in 
the  infinitude  of  man,  is  lost.  Once  leave  your  own 
knowledge  of  God,  your  own  sentiment,  and  take  sec- 
ondary knowledge,  as  St.  Paul's,  or  George  Fox's,  or 
Swedenborg's,  and  you  get  wide  from  God  with  every 
year."  5  "  The  reformers  summon  conventions,  and  vote 
and  resolve  in  multitude.  Not  so,  O  friends,  will  the  God 
deign  to  enter  and  inhabit  you,  but  by  a  niuthod  precisely 
the  reverse.  It  is  only  as  a  man  puts  off  all  foreign  sup- 
port, and  stands  alone,  that  I  see  him  to  be  strong,  and  to 
prevail.  lie  is  weaker  by  every  recruit  to  his  banner.  Is 
not  a  man  better  than  a  town  ?  Ask  nothing  of  men,  and 

1  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  41.  2  Ibid.,  p.  312.  3  Miscellanies,  p.  127. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  128.  6  ibid.,  p.  140. 


300          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

in  *,he  end  thou,  only  firm  column,  must  appear  the  up- 
holder of  all  that  surrounds  thee.  He  who  knows  that 
power  is  inborn,  that  he  is  weak  because  he  has  looked  for 
good  out  of  him  and.  elsewhere,  and  so  perceiving,  throws 
himself  unhesitatingly  on  his  thought,  instantly  rights 
himself,  stands  in  the  erect  position,  commands  his  limbs, 
works  miracles."  l  "  Let  us  not  rove  ;  let  us  sit  at  home 
with  the  cause.  Let  us  stun  and  astonish  the  intruding 
rabble  of  men  and  books  and  institutions,  by  a  simple 
declaration  of  the  divine  fact.  Bid  the  invaders  take  the 
shoes  from  off  their  feet,  for  God  is  here  within."  2  "  Great 
is  the  soul,  and  plain.  It  is  no  flatterer,  it  is  no  follower ; 
it  never  appeals  from  itself.  Before  the  immense  possibili-. 
ties  of  man,  all  mere  experience,  all  past  biography,  how- 
ever spotless  and  sainted,  shrinks  away."  3  Now  this  is 
pantheism  carried  out  to  the  last  degree.  It  is  the  being 
and  non-being  of  Hegel  put  into  a  didactic  form,  and  made 
to  each  man.  the  rule  of  his  daily  life.  The  self  is  nothing, 
and  there  is  nothing  but  the  self;  and  all  is  a  necessary 
deduction  from  the  postulate  that  the  known  God,  as 
defined  by  Hegel  and  Emerson  alike,  "is  that  of  which 
everything  may  be  affirmed  and  everything  denied."  The 
religion  of  Christ  was  self-worship ;  and  we  shall  be 
Christs,  in  the  same  sense  that  he  was,  when  we  find  the 
sum  of  all  that  is- real  and  divine  where  alone  it  exists  for 
us,  —  within  the  compass  of  our  own  thoughts. 

Another  practical  deduction,  which  Emerson  finds  in  his 
subjective  pantheism,  is  the  duty  of  self-assertion. 

Self-asser-       «  Thig  Qne  fa(jt  th(J  WQrld  hatc?g>»  says  }^   «  that 

the  soul  becomes  ;  for  that  forever  degrades  the 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  78.  »  Ibid.,  p.  02.  »  Ibid.,  p.  268. 


PANTHEISM.  301 

past,  turns  all  riches  to  poverty,  all  reputation  to  shame, 
confounds  the  saint  with  the  rogue,  shoves  Judas  and  Jesus 
equally  aside."  l  Here,  as  we  perceive,  the  "  becoming  " 
of  Hegel's  logic  is  made  the  basis  of  a  rule  for  our  every- 
day life.  Self-assertion,  by  which  we  understand  forward- 
ness, aspiring,  pushing  for  place,  personal  ambition,  self- 
consciousness,  a  bustling  sense  of  one's  own  importance, 
and  the  like,  our  author  regards  as  God  coining  out  of 
non-being  into  being ;  and  therefore  the  more  of  it  we 
have,  the  more  will  God  be  manifested.  And  the  sinner 
should  be  just  as  earnest  as  the  saint,  in  this  becoming ; 
for  God  is  the  essence  of  them  both.  Emerson  admits 
that  this  doctrine,  if  carried  out  in  all  its  consequences, 
legitimates  the  social  chaos  of  Goethe,  and  the  political 
lawlessness  of  Carlyle.  Yet  he  offers  no  other  creed, 
while  he  urges  this  upon  every  man.  "  I  appeal  from  your 
customs.  I  must  be  myself.  I  cannot  break  myself  any 
longer  for  you,  or  you.  If  you  can  love  me  for  what  I  am, 
we  shall  be  the  happier.  If  you  cannot,  I  will  still  seek 
to  deserve  that  you  should.  I  will  not  hide  my  tastes 
or  aversions.  I  will  so  trust  that  what  is  deep  is 
holy,  that  I  will  do  strongly  before  the  sun  and  moon 
whatever  inly  rejoices  me,  and  the  heart  appoints." 2 
"  A  man  may  have  that  allowance  he  takes.  Take  the 
place  and  attitude  which  belong  to  you,  and  all  men  acqui- 
esce. The  world  must  be  just.  It  leaves  every  man, 
with  profound  unconcern,  to  set  his  own  rate.  Hero  or 
driveller,  it  meddles  not  in  the  matter.  It  will  certainly 
accept  your  measure  of  your  doing  and  being,  whether 
you  sneak  about  and  deny  your  own  name,  or  whether  you 

see   your  work  produced   to  the   concave  sphere  of  the 

» 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  61.  2  Ibid.,  p.  64. 


302          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

heavens,  one  with  the  revolution  of  the  stars."  l  "  Speak 
your  latent  conviction,  and  it  shall  be  the  universal  sense ; 
for  the  inmost  in  due  time  becomes  the  outmost,  —  and 
our  first  thought  is  rendered  back  to  us  by  the  trumpets 
of  the  last  judgment."2 

Still  another  injunction,  which  Emerson  finds  in  his 
general  doctrine,  and  which  he  lays  on  us  all,  is  that  which 
bids  us  seek  the  law  of  our  duty  within.  All  trustworthy 
rules  for  the  conduct  of  life  are  of  subjective  origin ;  and 
they  alone  are  the  standard  by  which  to  judge  those  pre- 
tending to  come  from  any  outward  source.  If  this  in- 
ward law  were  simply  the  voice  of  conscience, 

The  moral 

law  wholly     that  higher  law  of  our  moral  nature  by  which 

eubjective. 

Christ  teaches  us  to  regulate  our  practice,  it 
would  be  well.  But  it  is  -far  other  than  that.  It  is  the 
total  tendency  of  the  man,  the  resultant  of  all  his  en- 
ergies in  free  exercise.  The  moral  imperative  is  no  more 
sacred  to  him  whose  ethical  nature  predominates,  than  the 
animal  imperative  to  'him  whose  appetites  predominate. 
"No  law  can  be  sacred  to  me,"  says  our  author,  " but  that 
of  my  own  nature.  If  I  am  the  devil's  child,  I  will  live 
from  the*  devil.  Good  and  bad  are  names  very  readily 
transferable  to  this  or  that ;  the  only  right  is  what  is  after 
my  constitution,  the  only  wrong  what  is  against  it.  A 
man  is  to  carry  himself,  in  the  presence  of  all  opposition, 
as  if  everything  were  titular  and  ephemeral  but  he."3  "  It 
is  of  no  use  to  preach  to  me  from  without.  If  a  man  do 
not  speak  from  within  the  veil,  where  the  word  is  one  with 
that  it  tells  of,  let  him  lowly  confess  it." 4  "  What  your 
heart  thinks  great  is  great.  The  soul's  emphasis  is  al- 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  136.       2  Ibid.,  p.  30.       s  Ibid.,  p.  44.       «  Ibid.,  p.  261. 


PANTHEISM.  303 

ways  right." l  "  No  love  can  be  bound  hy  oath  or  cov- 
enant to  secure  it  against  a  higher  love.  No  truth  so  sub- 
lime but  it  may  be  trivial  to-morrow  in  the  light  of  new 
thoughts.  People  wish  to  be  settled;  only  as  far  as  they 
are  unsettled  is  there  any  hope  of  them." 2  Our  author 
admits  that  the  law  thus  enunciated  confounds  all  estab- 
lished notions  of  social  order,  but  he  retracts  nothing. 
"  The  bold  sensualist,"  he  says,  "  will  use  the  name  of  phi- 
losophy to  gild  his  crimes,  but  the  law  of  consciousness 
abides."3  "One  man  thinks  justice  consists  in  paying 
debts,  and  has  no  measure  in  Ijis  abhorrence  of  another 
who  is  very  remiss  in  this,  and  makes  the  creditor  wait 
tediously.  But  that  second  man  has  his  own  way  of  look- 
ing at  things." 4  Let  each  obey  his  tendency,  is  Emerson's 
admonition  to  them  both,  and  in  neither  case  shall  any 
real  injustice  be-  done,  but  the  highest  ethical  perfection 
be  indifferently  attained  by  the  two  diverse  courses  of 
action.  He  proceeds  in  a  similar  strain,  seeming  to  feel 
the  dangerous  nature  of  the  ground  he  is  on,  yet  pressing 
boldly  forward,  in  the  line  of  his  fundamental  theory :  "  I 
hear  some  reader  say,  you  have  arrived  at  a  fine  Pyrrho- 
nism, at  an  equivalence  and  indifferency  of  all  actions,  and 
would  fain  teach  us  that  our  crimes  may  be  lively  stones, 
out  of  which  we  shall  construct  the  temple  of  the  true 
God !.  I  am  not  careful  to  justify  myself.  I  own  that  I 
am  gladdened  by  seeing  that  unrestrained  inundation  of 
the  principle  of  good  into  every  chink  and  hole  that  self- 
ishness has  left  open,  yea;  into  selfishness  itself;  so  that 
no  evil  is  pure,  nor  hell  itself  without  its  extreme  satisfac- 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  130.  2  Ibid.,  p.  290. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  65. .  <  Ibid.,  pp.  286,  287. 


304          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

tions."1  The  ultimate  fate  of  the  wicked,  that  is,  will  be 
a  source  of  blessedness  to  them,  as  truly  as  the  destiny  of 
the  righteous  will  make  them  forever  content.  Judas,  in 
going  to  his  own  place,  went  to  a  place  which  satisfied 
him,  no  less  than  the  Lord  of  glory  himself.  The  con- 
clusion is  certainly  somewhat  startling,  yet  it  grows  logi- 
cally out  of  the  Emersonian  philosophy.  The  optimism 
of  that  philosophy  is  all-encompassing,  absolute.  To 
whatever  any  being,  angel  or  devil,  is  brought  by,  the 
largest  outcome  of  all  that  is  in  him,  it  cannot  but  be  to 
him  a  state  of  perfect  blessedness.  It  may  be  called 
"perdition,"  and  by  many  other  hard  names;  and  "the 
Book  "  may  paint  its  terrors  in  blackness  and  fire ;  never- 
theless, it  is  not  an  evil,  but  a  good,  and,  to  those  who 
bravely  meet  it,  full  of  "  extreme  satisfactions." 2  The 
words  which  exhort  us  to  make  to  ourselves  friends  who 
shall  receive  us  when  our  earthly  tabernacles  fail,  is  here 
broadened  into  a  precept  which  confounds  holiness  and 
sin  ;  which  makes  it  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  we 
choose  this  or  that  alternative,  so  long  as  we  are  in  the 
path  to  which  the  "  emphasis  "  of  our  nature  impels  us. 

Another  duty  involved  in  the  pantheistic  creed  of  Em- 
erson, and  which  he  does  not  omit  to  press,  is  that  of  self- 
isolation.  All  true  life  rests  at  last  on  a  basis  of  pure 

individualism.     Intercourse  with  men,  and  devo- 
SStioii 8df  ti°n  to  mere  affairs,  render  us  forgetful  of  that 

in  which  all  true  greatness  consists.     The  secret 
doors,  by  which  the  soul  of  all  things  comes  into  us,  are 

1  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  288. 

2  For  a  fine  statement  and  criticism  of  this  view  of  evil,  see  Muller's  Chris- 
tian Doctrine  of  Sin,  Book  II.,  chap.  IV. 


PANTHEISM.  305 

not  kept  open.  We  no  longer  feel  the  charm  of  the  eter- 
nal; but  its  spell  is  broken,  and  we  fall  away  into  the 
temporal.  We  cease  to  be,  and  only  seem.  From  all 
this  seeming  we  must  withdraw  ourselves,  and  retire  into 
the  solitude  of  our  own  thoughts.  Thus  alone  is  it  that 
we  feel  the  impulses  of  the  universal  soul ;  as  the  rivers, 
by  pouring  themselves  into  the  sea,  are  filled  out  of  its 
depths  through  all  their  courses.  "  If  a  man  would  know 
what  the  great  God  speaketh,"  our  author  says,  "he  must 
'go  into  his  closet  and  shut  the  door,'  as  Jesus  said.  God 
will  not  make  himself  manifest  to  cowards.  One  must 
greatly  listen  to  himself,  withdrawing  himself  from  all  the 
accents  of  other  men's  devotion.  Even  their  prayers  are 
hurtful  to  him,  until  he  have  made  his  own.  He  that  finds 
God  a  sweet  enveloping  thought,  never  counts  his  com- 
pany. When  I  sit  in  that  presence  who  shall  dare  to 
come  in  ?  " l  "  The  poor  mind  does  not  seem  to 
itself  to  be  anything,  unless  it  have  an  outward 
badge ;  some  wild  contrasting  action,  to  testify 
that  it  is  somewhat.  The  rich  mind  lies  in  the 
sun  and  sleeps,  and  is  nature."  2  He  whose  mind  is  in  a, 
perpetual  doze,  and  all  whose  life  comes  nearest  to  the 
idea  of  natural  vegetation,  is,  according  to  this  language, 
the  man  bkssed  with  the  largest  measure  of  intellectual 
wealth.  Contentment  with  idle  reverie  is  the  characteris- 
tic of  genius  ;  and  they  are  greatest  whose  blessedness 
consists  with  doing  nothing. 

Urging  this  duty  of  self-isolation,  and  entire  satisfaction 
with  one's  inward  life,  Emerson  says,  "I  like  the  silent 
church  before  the  service  begins  better  than  any  preaching. 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  2G8.  2  ibid.,  p.  146. 

20 


306          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TEUTII. 

How  far  off,  how  cool,  how  chaste  the  persons  look,  begirt 

each  one  with  a  precinct  or  sanctuary.     So  let  us  always 

sit."1    "Let  us  not  be  too   much   acquainted. 

«'  Men  de- 
scend to         We  should  meet  each  morning  as  from  foreign 

meet." 

countries,  and,  spending  the  day  together,  should 
depart  at  night  as  into  foreign  countries."2  "Men  de- 
scend to  meet.  In  their  habitual  and  mean  service  to 
the  world,  for  which  they  forsake  their  native  nobleness, 
they  resemble  those  Arabian  sheiks  wHo  dwell  in  mean 
houses,  and  affect  an  extreme  poverty,  to  escape  the  ra- 
pacity of  the  Pacha,  and  reserve  all  their  display  of 
wealth  for  their  interior  and  guarded  retirements." 3 
Now  this  solitary  and  lofty  self-sufficiency,  which  is  a  duty 
if -pantheism  be  true,  certainly  ought  not  to  claim  any 
affinity  with  the  spirit  of  Him  who  went  about  doing  good, 
teaching  us  that  only  as  we  humble  ourselves  are  we 
exalted,  and  that  we  must  "wash  one  another's  feet  "if 
we  would  be  great  in  his  kingdom.  "  Your  isolation  must 
not  be  mechanical,  but  spiritual ;  that  is,  must  be  eleva- 
tion. At  times  the  world  seems  to  ]?e  in  conspiracy  to 
importune  you  with  important  trifles.  Friend,-  client, 
child,  sickness,  fear,  want,  charity,  all  knock  at  the  gate  of 
the  closet  door,  and  say,  '  Come  out  to  us.'  But  keep  thy 
state;  come  not  into  their  confusion." 4  And  this  man  is 

an  oracle  to  hot  a  few  philanthropists  of  to-day. 
Misanthro-  j)Q  those  W\1O  regard  him  as  a  safe  guide  in 

ways  of  loving  service  to  mankind  really  appre- 
hend the  spirit  of  his  writings  ?  Undoubtedly  there  are 
those  who  imagine  themselves  in  sympathy  with  his  views, 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  63.  *  Ibid.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  135. 

8  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  253.  «  Ibid.,  p.  63. 


PANTHEISM.  307 

while  they  are  dealing  their  bread  to  the  hungry,  and 
striving  to  break  every  yoke.  Yet  nothing  can  be  clearer, 
in  the  light  of  the  words  now  quoted,  than  that  the  path 
which  they  follow  is  not  his,  but  "the  more  excellent 
way "  in  their  own  hearts.  They  do  good  despite  of  his 
teachings.  They  are  not  swerved  from  their  lovin'g-heart- 
edness  and  charity,  though  charmed  by  the  sweet-voiced 
dream.  Their  protection  against  the  unloving  tone  of 
much  that  Emerson  has  written  consists  partly  in  the  fact 
that  they  are  too  good  to  comprehend  it,  and  partly  in  the 
fact  that  his  own  practice  gives  the  lie  to  his  theory. 

It  is  a  little  surprising  that  Emerson,  after  putting  so 
low  an  estimate  as  he  does  on  the  Christian  Scriptures, 
should  endeavor  to  show  that  they  accord,  in  some  of 
their  teachings,  with  his  doctrine.  Why  should 

Attitude 

he  claim  the  indorsement  of  a  volume   whose   towards  the 

Bible  and 

authority  he  has  disowned  ?  Seeing  how  man-  Christian- 
ifestly  the  Bible  is  against  him  in  its  whole 
drift,  he  seems  to  me  to  wrest  its  free  language  in  a  quite 
extraordinary  way.  He  broadly  intimates  that  the  account 
of  the  fall  of  man,  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  is  sim- 
ply an  exposition  of  his  theory,  as  held  by  Moses,  or  who- 
ever wrote  the  book ;  that  it  is  an  allegory,  picturing  to 
us  the  human  family,  who  in  the  main  have  ceased  to 
commune  with  the  great  spirit  of  nature  revealed  in  them, 
and  are  living  in  that  objective  world  which  he  regards  as 
unreal.1  "Christianity,"  he  says,  "  is  rightly  dear  to  the 
best  of  mankind ;  yet  was  there  never  a  young  philoso- 
pher whose  breeding  had  fallen  into  the  Christian  church, 

i  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  174. 


308         HAXF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

by  whom  that  brave  text  of  Paul's  was  not  specially 
prized :  '  Then  shall  also  the  Son  be  subject  unto  him  who 
put  all  things-  under  him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all.' 
Let  the  claims  and  virtues  of  persons  be  never  so  great 
and  welcome,  the  instinct  of  man  presses  eagerly  onward 
to  the  impersonal  and  illimitable,  and  gladly  arms  itself 
against  the  dogmatism  of  bigots  with  this  generous  word 
out  of  the  book  itself." l  "  The  dogmatism  of  bigots  "  is 
a  rather  tart  phrase  for  so  amiable  a  writer  as  Emerson  to 
apply  to  those  whose  only  bigotry  is,  that  they  do  not 
with  him  find  pantheism,  but  monotheism  in  the  writings 
of  the  apostles.  But  let  the  harsh  utterance  stand.  Our 
author  has  read  the  story  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  "  What 
a  debt  is  ours,"  he  says,  "  to  that  old  religion  which,  in  the 
childhood  of  most  of  us,  still  dwelt  like  a  Sabbath  morn- 
ing in  the  country  of  New  England,  teaching  privation, 
self-denial  and  sorrow !  A  man  was  born  not  for  prosper- 
ity, but  to  suffer  for  the  benefit  of  others,  like  the  noble 
rock-maple  which,  all  around  our  villages,  bleeds  for  the 
service  of  man."2.  When  Emerson  has  found,  in  all  the 
pantheism  of  the  ages,  any  such  flowering  as  this  into 
holy  and  sacrificial  lives,  it  will  be  time  for  him  to  charac- 
terize an  earnest  Christian  faith  as  "the  dogmatism  of 
bigots,"  and  to  quote  the  words  of  the  Son  of  God  as 
confirming  his  own  speculative  views.  "Jesus  Christ,"  he 
says,  "  belonged  to  the  true  race  of  prophets.  He  saw 
with  open  eye  the  mystery  of  the  soul.  One 

thSnchmt  man  was  true  to  wnat  ig  *n  y°u  ancl  me-  ^e 

Sieist/al1"     sa^5  m  tnis  Jllkilee  of  divine  emotion,  'I  am 
divine.     Through  me,  God  acts;   through  me, 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  284.  2  Miscellanies,  p.  211. 


PANTHEISM.  309 

speaks.  Would  you  see  God,  see  me  ;  or,  see  thee,  when 
thou  also  thinkest  as  I  now  think.'"1  To  the  view  of 
Emerson,  therefore,  Christ  is  not  an  exceptional  person 
among  men.  He  is  one  of  a  class  ;  those,  namely,  who 
have  lived  and  spoken  from  the  soul  which  dwells  con- 
sciously in  us  all.  "When  the  gods  come  among  men, 
they  are  not  known.  Jesus  was  not  ;  Socrates  and  Shake- 
speare were  not."  2  But  this  classification  will  not  stand. 
For  no  exegesis  can  make  out  the  religion  of  Christ  to  be 
only  self-worship,  or  the  God  of  the  Christian.  Scriptures 
to  be  the  same  as  that  of  Emerson  and  Spinoza.  We 
have  seen,  in  noticing  Emerson's  attitude  towards  all*re- 
forms  and  charities,  to  what  opposite  results  the  doctrine 
of  Christ  and  that  of  the  pantheist  logically  come.  The 
God  whose  will  Christ  came  to  do  is  a  Father,  with  the 
father's  heart  of  pity  and  tenderness  towards  all  his  chil- 
dren ;  the  God  whom  the  pantheist  would  set  up  in  his 
place,  and  persuade  us  to  worship,  is  an  eternal  fate,  which 
devours  all  things  up.  Emeraon  says,  Believe  in  the  god 
within  yourself,  and  you  shall  live  ;  Christ  says, 
Whosoever  believeth  in  me  shall  never  die.  the  two 

contrasted. 

Emerson  says,  Obey  your  own  tendency  and  you 
shall  be  led  into  all  truth  ;  Christ  saysr  I  am  the  way,  and 
the  truth,  and  the  life.  Emerson  says,  Accept  my  specula- 
tion and  it  shall  unsettle  you  in  all  things  ;  Christ  says, 
Take  my  yoke  upon  you  and  ye  shall  find  rest  to  your  soul. 
But  some  one  may  accuse  me  of  injustice  in  represent- 
ing that  the  spirit  of  Emerson's  doctrine  is  just  the  oppo- 
site of  the  spirit,  of  Christ  ;  that  he  would  unsettle  and 
bewilder  us,  rather  than  lead  us  in  a  plain  path,  where  our 

i  Miscellanies,  p.  125.  2  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  28. 


310          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Emerson       souls  shall  be  at  peace.    Yet  here  are  his  wo 
Tetu^r      fully  justifying  all  that  I  have  said:   "Lest  I 

should  mislead  any  when  I  have  my  head  and 
obey  my  own  whims,  let  me  remind  the  reader  that  I  am 
only  an  experimenter.  Do  not  set  the  least  value  on  what 
I  do,  or  the  least  discredit  on  what  I  do  not,  as  if  I  pre- 
tended to  settle  anything  true  or  false.  I  unsettle  all 
things.  No  facts  to  me  are  sacred  ;  none  are  profane  ;  I 
simply  experiment,  an  endless  seeker,  with  no  past  at  my 
back." J  Unlike  Him  who  declared  that  he  was  the  light 
of  the  world,  Emerson  here  announces  that  he  is  a  planet 
yet*  uncertain  of  its  own  orbit,  and  which  rushes  on,  in 
obedience  to  an  inward  impulse,  regardless  alike  of  the 
past  and  the  future. 

It  may  seem  to  some  that  I  misrepresent  Emerson,  in 

saying  that  he  is  not  a  philanthropist,  but,  so 
tiiropis1?.11  £lr  as  consistent  with  his  theory,  a  despiser  of 

all  acts  of  charity  and  beneficence  among  men. 
His  own  language  shall  decide  whether  I  have  misrepre- 
sented him  or  not.  "  I  tell  thee,  thou  foolish  philanthro- 
pist, that  I  grudge  the  dollar,  the  dime,  the  cent,  I  give  to 
such  men  as  do  not  belong  to  me,  and  to  whom  I  do  not 
belong.  Your  miscellaneous  popular  charities  ;  the  educa- 
tion at  college  of  fools ;  the  building  of  meeting-houses  to 
the  vain  end  to  which  many  now  stand;  alms  to  sots; 
and  the  thousandfold  relief  societies ;  though  I  confess 
with  shame  I  sometimes  succumb,  and  give  the  dollar,  it 
is  a  wicked  dollar,  which  by  and  by  I  shall  have  the 
manhood  to  withhold."2  As  if  these  words  were  net 
enough,  he  again  says,  in  one  "of  his  later  works,  "Leave 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  289.  2  ibid.,  pp.  45,  46. 


PANTHEISM.  311 

this  hypocritical  prating  about  the  masses.  Masses  are 
rude,  lame,  unmade,  pernicious  in  their  demands  and  in- 
fluence, and  need  not  to  be  flattered,  but  to  be  schooled. 
I  wish  not  to  concede  anything  to  them,  but  to  tame, 
'drill,  divide  and  break  them  up,  and  draw  individuals  out 
of  them.  The  worst  of  charity  is,  that  the  lives  you  arc 
asked  to  preserve  are  not  worth  preserving.  Masses ! 
the  calamity  is  the  masses.  I  do  not  wish  any  mass  at 
all,  but  honest  men  only ;  lovely,  sweet,  accom- 
plished women  only ;  no  shovel-handed,  narrow-  themasses. 
brained,  gin-drinking,  million  stockingers  or  laz- 
zaroni  at  all.  If  government  knew  how,  I  should  like  to 
see  it  check,  not  multiply  the  population.  When  it 
reaches  its  true  law  of  action,  every  man  that  is  born  will 
be  hailed  as  essential.  Away  with  this  hurrah  of  masses, 
and  let  us  have  the  considerate  vote  of  single  men,  spoken 
on  their  honor  and  their  conscience.  In  old  Egypt  it  was 
established  law,  that  the  vote  of  a  prophet  be  reckoned 
equal  to  a  hundred  hands.  I  think  it  was  much  under- 
estimated." l  Certainly,  this  burst  of  misanthropy  almost 
rivals  Carlyle.  It  is  as  undemocratic  as  the  most  violent 
aristocrat  could  desire.  It  savors  not  of  philanthropy,  but 
of  that  spirit  of  caste  which  would  do  a  Brahman's  heart 
good.  It  is,  in  fact,  whether  consciously  or  not  to  the 
author,  -a  passionate  rendering  of  Spinoza's  language, 
where  he  says,  as  one  of  the  inferences  from  his  panthe- 
istic system,  "  The  man  who  lives  by  reason  endeavors  as 
much  as  possible  not  to  be  touched  by  pity  or  com- 

•  MO 

passion.   a 

In  asserting,  as  I  have,  that  Emerson  confounds  the 

»  Conduct  of  Life,  pp.  218,  219.  -  Ethics,  Ft.  IV.,  Prop.  L.,  Coroll. 


312          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TEUTH. 

NO  moral  bad  with  the  good  in  morals,  and  sees  only 
the  same  kind  of  sacredness  in  men  as  in  the 
meanest  animals,  it  may  be  said  that  I  wrong  him.  But 
his  own  words  shall  judge  between  us.  "  I  talked  to- 
day with  a  pair  of  philosophers :  I  endeavored  to  show 
my  good  men  that  I  love  everything  by  turns,  and 
nothing  long ;  that  I  loved  the  centre,  but  doted  on  the 
superficies ;  that  I  loved  man,  if  men  seemed  to  me  mice 
and  rats ;  that  I  revered  saints,  but  woke  up  glad  that  the 
old  pagan  world  stood  its  ground,  and  died  hard ;  that  I 
was  glad  of  men  of  every  gift  and  nobility,  but  would  not 
live  in  their  arms."  l  The  same  soul  of  nature,  that  is, 
which  gives  understanding  to  men,  reveals  itself  in  the 
small  burrowing  creatures  ;  paganism  is  as  good  as  Chris- 
tianity while  earnestly  cultivated ;  the  warrior  who  deso- 
lates a  continent,  may  claim  the  same  homage  as  the 
enlightener  of  a  nation.  A  Ca3sar  and  a  Paul  are  alike 
noble,  as  judged  by  that, philosophy  which  sees  God  in  all 
action ;  but  Emerson  himself,  whom  this  nobility  fills 
with  joy,  is  greater  than  all,  and  disdains  familiar  inter- 
course with  that  which  he  so  admires,  since  the  most 
sacred  revelations  of  God  cannot  be  from  without,  but  are 
always  from  within. 

Now  a  stranger,  who  should  visit  Emerson  after  can- 
vassing the  views  which  I  have  given,  would  expect  to  find 
him  the  veriest  wild  creature  that  was  ever  caged.     But 
how  agreeable,  how  exhilarating  the  surprise ! 

Emerson 

bettor  than     He  is  the  kindest,  gentlest,  simplest  of  men. 

his  theory. 

These  bad  and  hard  utterances  are  not  charac- 
teristic of  him.     They  belong  to  the  system  he  has  em- 

i  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  239. 


PANTHEISM.  313 

braced,  as  he  is  forced  to  see  ;  but  the  New  England  blood 
in  him  is  too  pure  to  welcome  them.  He  for  the  most  part 
avoids  that  side  of  pantheism  which  looks  towards  lawless- 
ness and  vice,  and  keeps  rather  to  its  spiritual  side,  which 
permits  him  to  discourse  so  like  a  Christian  mystic,  if  not 
in  the  exact  language  of  Christianity.  In  nearly  all  his 
utterances  he  is  benevolent,  and  true  to  our  love  of  the 
beautiful  and  just  in  morals,  owing  to  this  great  inconsis- 
tency. His  practice  is.  not  in  agreement  with  his  theory," 
and  therefore  the  two  do  not  walk  together.  That  theory, 
whose  realized  ultimate  would  be  a  social  chaos,  does  not 
destroy  in  him  a  certain  high-toned  virtue,  bred  in  the 
ancestral  stock,  which  makes  him  the  friend  of  order,  of 
domestic  purity,  and  of  every  grace  of  character  that 
adorns  either  public  or  private  life.  Possibly  some  of 
those  who  feel  the  greatest  repugnance  to  Emerson's  doc- 
trine, and  who  believe  in  a  personal  God,  and  one  Master, 
even  Christ,  are  quite  as  inconsistent  with  their  creed  as 
he,  —  and  that,  too,  far  less  to  their  credit,  since  they  are 
made  worse  by  that  which  ma^es  him  better.  It  is  not 
honorable  to  men  to  disregard  in  practice  a  wise  system 
of  faith,  but  in  view  of  Emerson's  faith  we  cer- 
tainly esteem  him  the  more  for  saying,  "  A  fool-  tency  rec- 

•       111        IT          f  1-     t          •  ommended. 

isb  consistency  is  the  hobgoblin  01  little  minds, 
adored  by  little  statesmen  and  philosophers  and  divines. 
With  consistency  a  great  soul  has  simply  nothing  to  do." 1 
When  Spinoza's  landlady  came  to  him,  asking  him  to  teach 
her  his  doctrine,  he  advised  her  to  be  content  with  the 
Christian  faith,  in  which  she  had  been  bred  up.  And 
Emerson,  as  though  valuing  a  spirit  of  sincere  piety  more 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  50. 


314          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

than  his  own  speculations,  says  to  his  disciples,  "  In  your 
metaphysics  you  have  denied  personality  to  the  Deity ;  yet 
when  the  devout  motions  of  the  soul  come,  yield  to  them 
heart  and  life,  though  they  should  clothe  God  with  shape 
and  color.  Leave  your  theory,  as  Joseph  his  coat  in  the 
hand  of  the  harlot,  and  flee."  1  Certainly  we  are  inclined 
to  judge  in  the  most  favorable  light  possible  one  who  thus 
insists  on  right  action  whatever  may  become  of  theory ; 
but  it  is  the  theory,  and  not  the  man,  with  which  we  have 
been  especially  concerned  in  this  inquiry ;  nor  do  we  grant 
that  it  is  indifferent  what  a  man's  speculative  views  may 
be,  if  he  tries  to  make  his  practice  right,  since  in  the  great 

majority  of  cases  the  speculative  views  do, 
man  forced  sooner  or  later,  determine  the  practice.  Hy- 
hypocrite.  pocrisy  is  never  to  be  encouraged,  even  where 

it  makes  men  seem  better  thnn  their  honest  con- 
victions. We  naturally  carry  our  creeds  out  into  our  lives. 
This  is  the  tendency,  and  it  must  ultimately  prevail,  as 
external  hinderances,  and  the  restraints  of  education  and 
birth,  are  taken  away.  While  gladly  recognizing  all  the 
virtues  to  which  our  author  may  lay  claim,  and  admitting 
that  it  is  not  hypocrisy,  .but  goodness  of  nature,  which 
makes  his  life  so  much  more  pleasing  than  his  creed,  I  still 
insist  that  no  word,  in  which  I  have  set  forth  the  spirit  and 
drift  of  his  teachings,  should  be  taken  back,  or  qualified, 
or  in  any  respect  explained  away.  He  does  not  lay  a 
foundation  for  society,  for  government,  or  for  personal 
development  such  as  our  circumstances,  and  our  knowledge 
of  what  we  are,  demand.  Our  own  self,  looked  at  from 
tlio  transcendental  point  of  view,  and  including  all  its 

i  Essays,  Vol.  I.,  p.  50. 


PANTHEISM.  315 

weaknesses  and  exposures  to  evil,  is  the  only  sacred  thing. 
This  we  are  to  worship ;  for  this  we  are  to  live ;  in  this 
are  the  springs  and  the  law  of  all  that  is,  or  was,  or  ever 
shall  be. 

Upon  rising  from  this  examination,  the  same  question 
confronts  us  as  when  we  rose  from  the  examination  of 
Spinoza.  Are  the  conclusions  which  Emerson  has  reached, 
both  as  to  the  substance  of  truth  and  the  conduct  of  life, 
a*  warning  to  us  to  beware  of  the  a-priori  philosophy  ? 
Not  by  any  means.  The  danger  of  the  great  mass  of 
mankind  has  always  lain  just  the  other  way. 
The  popular  thought  of  the  world  ever  looks  dentaltem 

not  to  be 

outward  and  down,  • —  away  from  ideas  to  facts,      jnci-rori  i>y 

Emerson. 

from  spirit  to  matter,  from  the  kingdom  of  God 
to  questions  of  food,  raiment,  shelter,  temporal  thrift. 
That  thought  would  be  far  nobler,  and  far  more  ennobling, 
if  it  could  be  trained  to  a  steady  love  of  those  truths 
which  transcend  the  sphere  of  the  senses,  and  which  we 
reach  only  as  the  inner  doors  of  the  soul  are  open  to  our 
consciousness.  We  may  count  here  and  there  one,  among 
transcendentalists,  who,  though  a  star  of  the  first  magnitude, 
has  wandered  out  of  the  orbit  of  truth,  and  become  lost  in 
the  blackness  of  darkness.  Yet  we  are  at  the  same  time 
permitted  to  look  on  a  host  of  others,  of  the  same  school  of 
thought,  whom  no  such  fate  has  overtaken.  They  are  the 
brightest  names  in  the  Christian  church,  and  in  that  litera- 
ture which  never  .grows  old,  shining  forth  in  calm  splendor 
on  the  ages  God  would  lead  and  enlighten.  All  these 
safely  travelled  the  high  circuit  which  Emerson  too  self- 
reliantly  essayed,  held  to  their  course,  as  he  was  not, 
by  that  central  Luminary  which  is  the  light  and  the  life  of 


316          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

men.  If  the  flight  proved  too  hard  for  him, 
grand  pafc-  and  we  must  sorrowfully  own  that  he  fell  like  the 

guard. 

son  of  the  morning,  yet  his  overthrow  cannot  be 
imputed  to  the  form  of  philosophy  which  he  held  in  com- 
mon with  them.  They  have  not  been  shaken,  though 
members  of  the  same  starry  host  to  which  he  belonged. 
They  have  kept  their  first  estate.  No  shock  has  been  able 
to  hurl  them  from  their  sphere.  They  shine  on  with  un- 
dim'inished  lustre,  and  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmamen^ 
trusting  not  to  that  force  which  is  in  themselves,  but  to 
Him  who  holdeth  the  stars  in  his  right  hand. 


LECTURE  VIII. 

THEISM  WITH  A  PANTHEISTIC  DRIFT. 

IT  would  be  a  serious  defect,  in  any  account  of  modern 
free- thought,  to  omit  the  speculations  of  Theo- 
dore Parker.  Perhaps  the  name  of  no  religious  iSe?.™5 
theorist  of  the  last  generation  is  more  widely 
known.  To  the  public  generally,  however,  he  is  known 
more  as  an  earnest  political  reformer,  and  bitter  opponent 
of  the  existing  institutions  of  Christianity,  than  as  the 
teacher  of  a  positive  system  of  religious  belief.  But  he 
had  elaborated  such  a  system,  even  before  he  emerged 
from  the  comparative  obscurity  of  his  early  manhood ;  a 
system  which  he  claimed  as  peculiarly  his  own,  and  which 
he  professed  to  hold  unchanged  to  the  very  close  of  his 
life.  And  if  I  should  not  succeed  in  trying  to  make  clear 
just  what  his  views  and  position  were,  I  shall  hope  at  least 
to  preserve  a  spirit  of  candor  and  calm  inquiry,  such  as  I 
have  often  failed  to  discover  in  him. 

Parker  always  felt  it  a  hardship,  as  his  friends 

J  Disliked  to 

still  feel  it  to  be,  that  he  was  classed  with  inn-    be  called 

an  infidel. 

dels  by  the  popular  verdict.     Yet  it  is  rather  to 
the  odium  associated  with  the  word  "  infidel,"  than  to  the 
doctrine  which  that  word  marks,  that  objection  has  been 
made.     I  do  not  now  use  it  for  the  sake  of  the  odium,  but 

317 


318          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

as  a  descriptive  term,  which,  however  abused,  has  a  well- 
defined  meaning.  If  the  word  "  infidel  "  were  an  honorable 
term,  having  lost  its  odium  as  the  once  odious  word 
"  Christian  "  has,  I  would  use  it  all  the  same.  Those  who 
refuse  to  call  Christ  'their  master,  or  who,  after  having 
once  bowed  to  his  authority,  turn  from  him  to  trust  in 
something  else  as  the  final  arbiter,  are  at  liberty  to  make 
their  action  as  honorable  to  themselves  as  they  can.  They 
are  not  charged  with  absolute  infidelity,  but  only  with  infi- 
delity to  Christ  the  Lord.  The  term  is  accurately  em- 
ployed. It  describes  just  what  they  have  done.  They 
should  glory  in  it,  as  some  try  to  do,  if  there  be  a  religious 
authority  for  them  superior  to  that  of  Christ. 

Let  us  then,  in  the  first  place,  see  the  proof 

Did  not  bow      .          _.      ..  _  .  _ 

to  Christ  as    that  barker  did  not  own  the  authority  of  Christ 

the  final  au- 

tiioriiyin  as  supreme  in  matters  of  religious  faith:  the 
religion. 

'  proof  that  he  revolted  from  under  that  authority, 

and.  set  up  for  himself  another  religious  oracle.  This  evi- 
dence will  not  be  hard  to  find.  It  is  so  abounding,  and  so 
acknowledged  by  both  himself  and  his  friends,  that  I  may 
be  thought  to  do  a  superfluous  work  in  adducing  it.  But 
we  must  go  step  by  step  ;  taking  the  first  for  the  sake  of 
the  second,  if  indeed  for  no  other  reason. 

In  his  chapter  on  the  "limitations  of  Jesus,"  Parker 
says,  "It  is  apparent  that  Jesus  shared  the 
erroneous  notions  of  the  times  respecting  devils, 
possessions,  and  demonology  in  general  ;  respect- 
ing  the  character  of  God,  and  the  eternal  pun- 
ishment he  prepares  for  the  devil  and  his  angels, 
and  for  a  large  part  of  mankind.  If  we  may  credit  the 


B  error  on 


PANTHEISM.  319 

most  trustworthy  of  the  Gospels,  he  was  profoundly  in 
error  on  these  important  points,  whereon  absurd  doctrines 
have  still  a  most  pernicious  influence  in  Christendom.  But 
it  would  be  too  much  to  expect  a  man  '  about  thirty  years 
of  age '  in  Palestine,  in  the  first  century,  to  have  outgrown 
what  is  still  the  doctrine  of  learned  ministers  all  over  the 
Christian  world.  He  was  mistaken  in  the  interpretation 
of  J-he  Old  Testament,  if  we  may  take  the  word  of  the 
Gospels.  But  if  he  supposed  that  the  writers  of  the 
Pentateuch,  the  Psalms,  and  the  prophecies  spoke  of  him ; 
if  he  applied  their  poetic  figures  to  himself,  it  is  yet  but  a 
trifling  mistake,  affecting  a  man's  head,  not  his  heart.  It 
is  no  more  necessary,  for  Jesus  than  for  Luther  to  under- 
stand all  ancient  literature,  and  be  familiar  with  criticism 
and  antiquities  ;  though  with  men  who  think  religion  rests 
on  his  infallibility,  it  must  indeed  be  a  very  hard  case  for 
their  belief  in  Christianity."  1  Now,  in  this  extract  it  is 
noticeable,  that  Parker  accepts  the  orthodox  exegesis 
respecting  future  punishment,  a  personal  devil,  and  Messi- 
anic prophecies ;  that  he  rejects  the  exegesis. which  prevails, 
on  those  topics,  among  Unitarians  and  Universalists.  tie 
also  expresses  a  doubt  as  to  the  claim  of  *the  New  Testa- 
ment, not  merely  to  divine  authority,  or  special  inspiration, 
but  to  the  trustworthiness  of  ordinary  history.  And  he 
very  graciously  apologizes  for  the  errors  of  Jesus,  attribut- 
ing them  to  youthful  enthusiasm,  inexperience,  and  limited 
advantages  for  culture.  But  the  point  to  be  especially 
noticed  is,  that  he  finds  no  element  of  authority  in  Christ 
as  a  religious  teacher ;  he  has  a  feeling  of  pity  for  all,  of 
whatever  shade  of  belief,  who  hold  to  the  infallibility  of 

1  Discourse  of  Religion  (Little  &  Brown,  Boston,  1856),  pp.  276, 277. 


320  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TEUTH. 

Jesus.     He  says  in  another  place,  speaking  of 
and  the  T '     modern  theology,  it  "  has  two  great  idols,  the 

Bible  idols.      ._ 

BIBLE  and  CHRIST.   1 

The  Unitarian  body  is  denounced  by  Parker  for  still  rec- 
ognizing the  authority  of  the  Son  of  God.  That  party, 
he  says, "  differs  theoretically  from  the  orthodox  party  in 
exegesis,  and  that  alone ;  like  that,  is  ready  to  believe  any- 
thing which  has  a  thus-saith-the-Lord  before  it ; 
Unitarians  its  Christianity  rests  on  the  authority  of  Jesus; 

denounced  J 

f!£tiiem~  tnat  on  the  authority  of  his  miracles;  and  his 
miracles  on  the  testimony  of  the.  Evangelists. 
The  old  landmarks  must  not  be  passed  by,  nor  the  Bible 
questioned  as  to  its  right  to  be  master,  of  the  soul.  Chris- 
tianity must  be  rested  on  the  authority  of  Christ." 2  Such, 
he  alleges,  is  the  doctrine  of  conservative  Unitarians  ;  and 
from  it  he  earnestly  dissents,  as  being  "  too  narrow  for  the 
soul."  The  fact  that  Christ  claims  this  authority  he  does 
not  deny,  but  considers  it  one  of  the  mistakes  into  which 
Christ's  enthusiasm  led  him. 

Parker  more  usually  calls  his  .own  system  or  speculation 
the  Absolute  Religion,  though  not  always.  In  one  place, 
distinguishing  it* from  the  prevailing  theology,  he  calls  it 
spiritualism ;  and  says  it  teaches  that  "  God  is  immanent 
in  spirit  and  in  space."  Here  we  have,  at  the 
keriHm  finds  very  threshold,  a  statement  which  is  strictly  pan- 
theistic in  form.  This  spiritualism,  the  author 
goes  on  to  say,  "  believes  that  God  is  near  the  soul ;  hears 
him  in  all  true  Scripture,  Jewish  or  Phoenician ;  stoops  at 
the  same  fountain  as  Moses  or  Jesus.  It  sees  in  Jesus  a 
man  living  man-like,  highly  gifted,  though  not  without 

i  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  453.  2  Ibid.,  p.  439. 


PANTHEISM.  321 

errors.  He  lived  for  himself;  died  for  himself;  worked 
out  his  own  salvation,  and  we  must  do  the  same,  for  one 
man  cannot  live  for  another  more  than  he  can  eat  and 
sleep  for  another.  The  divine  incarnation  is  in  all  man- 
kind." l  So  high  is  the  throne  of  judgment  on  which 
Parker  seats  himself.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  see  how  the  state- 
ment, that  all  mankind  are  the  incarnation  of  God,  differs 
from  the  most  distinctive  utterances  of  Spinozism.  But 
waiving  this  point  for  the  present,  and  still  tracing  the 
plain  marks  Parker  has  left  of  his  estimate  of  Jesus,  we 
find  him  saying,  in  an  account  of  his  early  experiences,  "  I 
had  no  belief  in  the  plenary,  infallible,  verbal  inspiration 
of  the  whole  Bible,  and  strong  doubts  as  to  the  miraculous 
inspiration  of  any  part  of  it.  I  could  not  put  my  finger  on 
any  great  moral  or  religious  truth  taught  by  revelation  in 
the  New  Testament,  which  had  not  previously  been  set  forth 
by  men  for  whom  no  miraculous  help  was  ever  claimed." 2 
Of  the  Old  Testament  Parker  says,  "  The  legendary 
and  mythological  writings  of  the  Hebrews  have 
no  more  authority  than  the  similar  narratives  of  The  OM 
the  Phoenicians,  the  Persians, and  the  Chinese."3  long  since 

outgrown. 

He  thinks  that  many  things  in  those  ancient 
writings  were  relatively  true,  and  of  use,  to  the  people  to 
whom  they  were  spoken.  But  humanity,  which  is  ever 
moving  forward  in  religious  ideas  as  in  other  matters,  has 
long  since  outgrown  them,  and  left  them,  as  cast-off  gar- 
ments, far  behind  on  its  path.  "  Hebraism,  Heathenism, 
Christianism  are  places  where  man  halted  in  his  march 
towards  the  promised  land,  encampments  on  his  pilgrimage. 

1  Discourse  of  Religion,  pp.  444,  449. 

2  Experience  as  a  Minister  (Boston,  1859),  p.  37. 
8  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  111. 

21 


322  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

He  rests  a  while  ;  then  God  says  to  him,  Long  enough  hast 
thou  compassed  this  mountain  ;  turn  and  take  thy  journey 
forward.  Lo !  the  land  of  promise  is  still  before  thee."  l 
As  to  the  nature  of  this  religious  progress,  our  author  does 
not  leave  us  in  doubt.  It  is  an  endless  "becoming,"  a  con- 
tinuous unfolding  of  the  absolute  religion  in  new  and 
better  forms.  It  delivers  evermore  from  the  power  of  the 
past,  and  from  all  authority  external  to  the  soul  itself. 
The  present  emphasis  of  each  man's  religious  conscious- 
ness is  his  guide  for  the  time  being.  In  that  he  learns  to 
trust,  and  to  reject  every  other  oracle,  as  he  grows  truly 
wise  concerning  his  own  faculties  and  destiny.  "  There 
must  be  a  better  form  of  religion,"  he  says.  "  It  must  be 
free,  and  welcome  the  highest,  the  proudest,  and  the  wid- 
est thought." 2  Whoever  seeks  this  nobler  form  "  bo\vs  to 
no  idols,  neither  mammon,  nor  the  church,  nor  the  Bible, 
nor  yet  Jesus.  Its  redeemer  is  within,  its  salvation,  and 
its  heaven  and  oracle  of  God."3  "Protestantism  delivers 
us  from  the  tyranny  of  the  church,  and  carries  us  back  to 

the  Bible.  Biblical  criticism  frees  us  from  the 
TCi?fftous°f  thraldom  of  the  Scriptures,  and  brings  us  to  the 

authority  of  Jesus.  Philosophical  spiritualism 
liberates  us  from  all  personal  and  finite  authority,  and  re- 
stores us  to  God,  the  primeval  fountain." 4  Not  only, 
therefore,  is  the  true  God  impersonal,  according  to  Parker, 
but  the  gospel  of  Christ,  and  all  the  forms  of  Christianity, 
are  each  a  despotism,  whose  sway  the  human  soul  rejects, 
upon  coming  to  a  clear  knowledge  of  its  own  inherent  na- 
ture. 

i 

1  Sermons  of  Theism  (Boston,  Little  &  Brown,  1856),  Introd.,  p.  74. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  72.  s  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  446.  «  Ibid.,  p.  449. 


PANTHEISM.  323 

Having  seen  what  Parker  denies  on  religious 

The  posi- 

sumects,  let  us,  in  the  second  place,  see  what  he    tive  side  of 

Parkerism. 

undertakes  to  affirm.     1  have  said  that  he  calls 

his  doctrine  the  Absolute  Religion,  Spiritualism,  or  Philo- 

sophical Spiritualism.     The  first  of  these  designations  is 

that  by  which  his  more  distinctive  views  are  best  known. 

In   some   of  his   later   writings,    however,   the 

word  "  theism  "  seems  to  be  preferred  ;  and  he    toCSfgnate 

strongly  insists  that  the  speculation  thus  named 

is.  something  quite  other  than  deism,  pantheism,  or  athe- 

ism.    Indeed,  lie  labors  so  hard  and  often  to  make  out  this 

distinction,  that  we  suspect  it  was  not  clear  to  the  minds 

of  his  friends,  even  if  he  himself  had  no  doubt  of  its  reality. 

The   terms   he   chose   by  which   to   designate  his   views 

show   that  he  was   ambitious   of  originality,  though   the 

views  themselves  are  in  almost  no  sense  original.     It  is  in 

forms  of  expression,  not  in  essence  of  doctrine, 

that  he  is  unlike  some  of  those  from  whom  he 

claims  to  differ.     He  was  unwilling  to  call  any 


one  master,  even  while  freely  appropriating  the 
opinions  of  others.  Whether  he  really  believed  himself 
to  be  the  founder  of  a  new  religion  or  not,  that  was  evi- 
dently the  high  character  and  office  to  which  he  aspired, 
and  which  he  labored  all  his  life  long  to  show  that  he  had 
attained.  But  it  will  appear,  I  think,  that  he  was  not  as 
successful  as  he  thought  himself  to  be  ;  that  in  large  part, 
unconsciously  perhaps,  he  was  a  disciple  of  other  men; 
that  even  where  he  most  s-toutly  asserts  his  independence 
and  originality,  he  is  not  the  central  sun,  but  rather  a  sec- 
ondary orb,  in  the  system  to  which  he  belongs.  I  shall 
hope  to  give  an  intelligible,  though  condensed  statement 


324  HALF    TRUTHS   AND    TIIE    TliUTH. 

of  what  Parker  calls  his  Theism,  without  taking  up  very 
much  space. 

The  elements  which  he  places  at  the  bottom 
toriM>fflAb     °^  ^e  Absolute  Religion,  and  which  he  traces 
8?onte  Kcli     through  all  its  multitudinous  forms,  are  three  in 
number :  the  Sentiment,  the  Idea,  the  Concep- 
tion.   There  is  in  all  men  a  feeling  of  dependence :  this  is  the 
religious  sentiment.     But  the  feeling  of  depen- 
dent*™        deuce  involves,  or  is  necessarily  connected  with, 
an  intuition  of  something  on  which  the  depen- 
dence rests :  that  objective  something  is  God,  and  consti- 
tutes the  religious-  idea.     And  this  idea,  as  it  is 
variously    apprehended,   limited,    and    defined, 
The  con-       becomes   the   religious   conception.      Of   these 

ception. 

three  elements,  the  first  two,  the  sentiment  and 
the  idea,  are  universal.  They  are  also  unvarying  in 
their  nature,  being  a  part  of  the  essential  furniture  of 
the  human  mind.  Not  so,  however,  the  third  element. 
This  is  the  form  under  which  the  idea  is  apprehended. 
It  belongs  to  the  comprehending  faculty,  and  differs 
with  the  differing  capacities,  idiosyncrasies,  and  culture 

of  men.     The  conception  of  God  in  the  mind  of 

The  cqncep-  ,  - 

tion  alone      a   JN  ew   Zealander,  for  instance,  diners   vastly 

varies. 

from  that  in  the  mind  of  an  educated  English- 
man; but  the  sentiment  and  idea  are  in  both  cases  the 
same.  These  three  factors,  then,  constantly  working  to- 
gether everywhere,  make  the  Absolute  Religion.  This  is 
all  the  religion  there  is  in  the. world,  or  ever  was,  or  will 
be.  Judaism,  Paganism,  Christianity,  Mohammedanism, 
are  but  the  transient  forms  of  this  permanent  essence. 
All  religions  are  substantially  one  and  the  same.  But 


PANTHEISM.  325 

they  differ  endlessly  in  form,  owing  to  the  variable  term, 
the  conception  of  God.  This  is  purely  subjective,  and 
determined,  in  each  individual  case,  by  inherent 
but  constantly  changing  peculiarities.  The  reli-  reunions* 
gious  conception  has  been  in  a  state  of  progres- 
sive development  from  the  beginning.  It  has  not  yet 
reached  its  perfect  maturity,  however  near  to  perfection 
some  marvellously  gifted  soul,  here  or  there,  may  per- 
chance have  come.  Man  is  a  steadily  progressive  being 
in  religion,  as  in  all  the  other  elements  of  his  nature. 
This  progress  the  author  thinks  he  has  traced  in  the  his- 
tories of  the  various  families  of  men :  not  traced  it  as 
thoroughly  as  he  could  desire,  since  the  data  are  wanting, 
but  sufficiently  to  persuade  him  that  his  main  position  is 
correct.  He  would  be  glad  of  certain  facts  which  he  does 
not  find, — just  as  the  extreme  Darwinists  would  be,  in 
proving  their  doctrine  of  the  origin  of  species. 
But  the  large  mass  of  facts  which  he  does  find  cession 
seem  to  him  to  make  the  unfound  so  probable, 
that  he  assumes  their  existence;  and  he  announces  the 
conclusion  to  which  he  comes  from  such  a  premise  with  an 
air  of  scientific  certainty.  Man's  original  conception  of 
God  was  in  the  form  of  Fetichism.  Then,  as  he  emerged 
from  barbarism,  and  became  somewhat  civilized,  that  con- 
ception rose  to  the  form  of  Polytheism,  or  even  to  some 
of  the  ruder  forms  of  Pantheism.  Then,  as  governments 
were  set  up,  and  nations  became  rivals  of  each  other,  this 
conception  took  the  shape  of  a  belief  in  national  gods. 
Hence  the  Isis  and  Osiris  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Indian 
Brahma  and  Gaudama ;  the'  Greek,  and  the  Roman  pan- 
theon, the  Scandinavian  Thor,  the  Persian  Ormuzd,  the 


326          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Phoenician  Baal.  The  Jehovah,  of  whom  we  read  in  the 
Old  Testament,  was  but  the  national  god  of  the  Hebrews ; 
an  imperfect  god,  as  were  those  worshipped  by  the  other 
nations ;  one  who  loved  the  Jews,  and  who  was  bent  on 
making  them  the  supreme  political  power  among  men. 
But  this  exclusive  national  spirit  gave  way  somewhat 
before  the  conquests  of  the  Roman  empire.  A  new  polit- 
ical era  dawned,  in  which  peoples  hitherto  at  strife  were 
brought  under  a  single  government.  This  new  state  of 
things  led  the  way  to  the  Christian  conception  of  God ; 
a  conception  larger  and  nobler  than  any  which  had  pre- 
ceded it,  but  still  imperfect,  since  even  the  God  of  Chris- 
tianity is  a  partial  being,  whose  purpose  it  is  to  save  a 
part  of  the  human  race,  and  to  eternally  torture  all  the 
others.  Plainly,  then,  the  perfect  conception  is 
tobesu-  not  yet  reached.  Parkerism,  as  judged  in  its 

pcrscded.  .  . 

own  light,  must  soon  perish.  It  is  the  duty  or 
all  men  to  struggle  for  something  better  yet  in  store  for 
them.  Forgetting  the  venerable  past,  and  disentangling 
themselves  from  the  present,  they  should  keep  their  con- 
ception ever  enlarging,  that  it  may  accord  with  the  grow- 
ing science,  thought,  and  philanthropy  of  the  world.  This 
doctrine  of  an  endless  progress,  as  all  must  see,  destroys 
the  basis  of  the  author's  whole  system.  For  by  what 
right  can  he  claim  to  speak  of  an  absolute  religion,  while 
holding  that  the  very  faculties  and  powers  on  which  man 
is  dependent  for  all  his  religious  views,  are  in  a  constant 
process  of  change?  That  which  seems  absolute  to-day 
will  be  seen  to  be  relative  to-morrow,  if  his  theory  be  true. 
Only  a  weary  eternity  of  escape  from  one  falsehood  to 
another  is  before  us.  If  there  can  be  no  absolutely  perfect 


PANTHEISM.  327 

revelation  of  God  to  us  out  of  a  supernatural  sphere,  but 
we  can  know  him  only  under  those  forms  of  our  own 
minds  which  we  are  daily  outgrowing,  the  word  truth  is 
eternally  without  a  fixed  meaning;  and  whatever  we  may 
now  happen  to  believe  concerning  God  and  our  obligations 
to  him,  we  are  sure  to  reach  a  point  in  the  future  where 
we  shall  see  that  we  believed  a  lie. 

There  are  particular  statements  in  the  author's  exposi- 
tion of  his  theory,  with  which  we  might  not  disagree. 
Much  that  he  says  respecting  the  religious  sentiment,  the 
idea,  and  the  conception  in  the  unaided  mind,  is,  no  doubt, 
true,  notwithstanding  the  suicidal  spirit  of  his  scheme  as 
a  whole.  And  besides  this  fatal  feature,  even  P.irker>8 
the  partial  truths  which  he  utters,  rest  on  a  the- 
ory  of  progress  which  the  settled  facts  of  his- 
tory  flatly  contradict.  Those  facts  were  given 
in  a  previous  lecture.1  Scientific  researches  have  shown 
that  monotheism  existed  in  the  world  —  in  Egypt,  China, 
and  elsewhere  - —  before  the  ages  of  idolatrous  worship. 
Fetich  ism  is  not  the  most  ancient  religion  of  which  we 
have  historic  record.  Archeology  proves  that  a  better 
religion  than  polytheism  preceded  polytheism.  And  the 
verdict  of  history  is  not  that  there  was  steady  progress, 
but  fearful  degeneracy,  in  man's  forms  of  worship  and 
conceptions  of  God.  There  is  a  solid  basis,  which  no 
plausible  theory  can  disturb,  for  our  belief  that  man  was, 
at  least  religiously,  better  as  God  made  him  than  as  we 
find  him  in  the  savage  state.  However  he  may  have  im- 
proved in  other  respects,  in  that  spiritual  nature  which 
makes  him  God's  child,  he  has  fallen.  As  a  religious 
being  he  degenerated  into  the  primeval  barbarism,  and 
i  Lecture  I. 


328          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

did   not  grow  up  into  it  out  of  a  deeper  ignorance  of  the 
true  God. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  fact  on  which  Parker  insists  more 
strongly,  than  the  infinite  perfection  of  the  Creator.  Yet 
he  does  not  seem  to  see  that  the  biblical  doctrine  of  a  fall, 
and  of  the  religious  degeneracy  of  man,  is  necessary  to  sus- 
tain this  vital  fact.  That,  rather  than  Ids  own  doctrine  of 
progress  from  a  life  wholly  brutish,  is  the  logical  inference 
from  God's  infinite  perfection.  He  insists,  with 

Obscures  ~     ,    .  „ 

the  charac-     eTeat  earnestness,  that  God  has  a  perfect  mo- 

terofGod. 

tive,  and  perfect  purpose,  and  makes  a  perfect 
use  of  the^  most  perfect  means  in  fulfilling  that  purpose. 
Now,  which  being  is  more  worthy  of  such  a  God,  more 
worthy  of  infinite  wisdom  and  4ove  to  create  as  the  father 
of  a  religious  race?  Shall  the  first  term  in  this  grand 
series  be  a  savage,  more  a  brute  than  a  man  ;  one  who,  by 
the  necessity  of  his  organization,  and  with  no  capacity  for 
a  less  revolting  worship,  saciifices  his  child  to  the  cat  which 
he  has  defied  ?  Or  shall  this  wondrous  creature,  made  for 
fellowship  with  the  great  Father  of  men,  be  such  as  that 
Adam  who  is  described  to  us  in  Genesis  ;  upright,  fashioned 
after  the  image  of  God,  searching  the  heavens  with  fearless 
eye,  and  awaiting  the  visits  of  the  Infinite  One  among 
the  trees  in  the  cool  of  the  day?  Certainly  we  should 
expect  such  a  being,  rather  than  the  monster  of  Parker's 

theory,  to  come  forth  from  the  divine  Artist's 
Weakens  hand.  There  is  also  a  firmer  basis  of  hope  for 

our  basis  * 


man'  more  reason  to  expect  that  he  will  rise 
into  communion  with  God  and  become  a  par- 
taker of  the  divine  holiness,  if  originally  endowed   with 
those  high  powers  which  the  biblical  account  of  his  crea- 


PANTHEISM.  329 

tion  ascribes  to  him.  But  those  high  powers  involved  the 
gift  of  free-will.  Man,  like  the  Creator,  could  determine 
for  himself  what  course  of  moral  action  he  would  pursue. 
In  the  exercise  of  this  freedom,  with  holiness  and  sin  alike 
possible  to  him,  he  was  tempted  into  the  choice  of  the  lat- 
ter. Thus  he  forsook  the  God  in  whose  image  he  was 
made,  and  sank  down  to  the  level  of  superstition  where 
Parker  finds  him.  And  hence  it  follows,  that 
the  first  great  need  of  man  is  not  progress  in  his  ^ed^ ~re 
present  state,  but  redemption  from  it.  The  rationS" 
whole  scheme  of  a  revelation  from  God,  with 
the  purpose  of  an  atonement  and  restoration,  is  seen  to 
be  rational.  Our  faith  in  the  goodness-  of  God  leads  us  to 
expect  that  he  will  interpose  for  the  recovery  of  his  chil- 
dren. And  that  remedial  work  must  have  on  it  the  seal 
of  his  own  divine  name  and  authority,  and  must  be  in  the 
hands  of  a  Mediator  who  is  not  subject  to  human  limita- 
tions. The  blind  cannot  lead  the  blind.  None  but  a 
Saviour  who  has  never  fallen,  and  whose  nature  is  such 
that  he  cannot  be  tempted  of  evil,  may  hope  to  avail  for 
us  in  this  sore  exigency. 

I  have  now  sketched  the  main  features  of  Parker's  the- 
ism ;  and  have  indicated,  in  brief,  the  line  of  refutation  to 
which  he  is  exposed,  assuming  him  to  be  only  a 
theist,  and  the  leader  he  has  been  supposed  to     simply  »° 

.  -.-  theist. 

be.  It  may  appeur,  however,  as  we  go  on,  that 
this  assumption  is  unfounded,  or  at  least  that  it  but  par- 
tially states  the  case ;  that  there  was  in  him,  not  a  conclu- 
sion, perhaps,  but  a  tendency  towards  a  conclusion,  which 
forbids  us  to  assign  him  the  place  of  leadership,  and  re- 
quires that  he  be  set  down  as  the  follower  of  a  school  of 


330  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

theorists  long  known  in  the  history  of  religious  specula- 
tion. Had  1  been  told  that  Parker  was  a  pantheist,  before 
studying  him  with  a  view  to  the  settlement  of  the  matter, 
I  should  have  been  strongly  inclined  to  deny  the  charge ; 
and  I  still  deny  it,  after  carefully  reading  his  works,  if  the 
meaning  be  that  he  had  finally  and  openly  declared  him- 
self to  that  effect.  But  that  the  imputation  is  altogether 
false,  if  only  the  drift  and  tone  of  his  thinking  be  meant, 
no  thorough  student  of  him,  I  am  sure,  will  undertake  to 
maintain. 

Let   us    therefore,  in   the   third  place,  see   if 
er  there    be   any  sufficient   ground    for   bririging 
Theodore  Parker  within  the  limits  of  a  treatise 
on  pantheistic  thinking. 

Here  it  is  important  to   revert,  for   a   moment,  to  the 

position  taken  in  the  introduction  to  these  lectures.     It 

was  there  maintained  that  there  can  be  but  two  sources 

of  philosophical  infidelity ;  that  all  free  thought 

A  re-state-     }ias  its  logical  ultimate  in  pantheism  or  positiv- 

ment  of  the 

o^unbeVief  *sm :  m  pantheism  when  the  a-priori  or  tran- 
scendental method  of  thinking  is  rigidly  adhered 
to,  in  positivism  when  the  a-posteriori  or  empirical  method 
is  strictly  followed.  Any  other  forms  of  infidelity  are  but 
half-way  houses  between  Christianity  and  one  or  the  other 
of  these  two.  The  human  mind  having  let  go  its  hold 
upon  God,  and  not  recovering  that  hold  in  Christ,  gravi- 
tates steadily  towards  Spinoza  or  Cotnte.  Christ,  if  I  may 
so  speak,  stands  as  it  were  at  the  apex  of  the  triangle  of  re- 
ligious thought ;  and  whomsoever  faith  in  Christ  does  not 
uphold  at  that  point,  the  same  settles  steadily  downward 


PANTHEISM.  331 

through  the  process  of  speculation,  till  he  reaches  the  base 
line ;  the  original  bent  of  his  mind  having  meanwhile,  ac- 
cording as  it  is  transcendental  or  empirical,  carried  him 
aside  op  that  line  either  to  the  angle  occupied  by  Spinoza, 
or  to  that  occupied  by  Comte.  Any  intermediate  posi- 
tions, such  as  deism,  theism,  scepticism,  rationalism,  natu- 
ralism, are  but  points  in  the  process,  where  he  is  held  in 
suspense  for  a  longer  or  shorter  time. 

This  statement  is,  if  I  mistake  not,  confirmed  by  the 
drift  of  Parker's  speculations.     Plaving  cast  off 
the  authority  of  Christ,  he  did   not  escape  the   2^cfn0tbe 
fatnl  spell  which   draws  all   minds  downward,   ?Bfositiv" 
either  in  the  direction  of  pantheism  or  positiv- 
ism ;  not  in  the  direction  of  positivism  in  his  case,  as  we 
shall  soon  see.     The  bent  of  his  genius  was  not  empirical, 
but  transcendental.     He  found  the  germs  of  the  absolute 
religion,  not  in  the  philosophy  of  the  senses,  but  in  that 
of  consciousness.     Had  he  lived  to  the  present  time,  when 
the  intuitional  philosophy  is  at  a  low  ebb  and  the  sensa- 
tional is  coming  in  like  a  flood,  he  would  logically  stand 
with  the  retiring  rather  than  the  advancing  host. 

There  is  one  subject  on  which  we  need  to  discriminate 
with  care,  or  we  shall  often  confound  the  pan- 
theist with  the  positivist:  it  is  the  subject  of 
development  in  nature.     They  both  speak  of   po 
this,  sometimes  in  nearly  the  same  wrords  ;  but 
if  we  consider  we  shall  see  that  with  one  it  is  a  develop- 
ment downward,  and  with  the  other  a  development  up- 
ward.    Pantheism  is  thus  made  to-  appear  as  a  kind  of 
a-priori  positivism,  and  positivism  as  a-posteriori  pantheism. 
According  to  the  pantheist  there  is  an  efflux  of  the  divine 


332          HALF  TEUTHS  ANP  THE  TKUTH. 

essence  ever  farther  and  farther  down,  constituting  nature, 
both  the  conscious  and  the  unconscious.  The  positivist 
admits  no  such  divine  essence,  much  less  any  manifesta- 
tions of  it  under  natural  forms  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  holds 
that  all  the  reality  we  can  know  is  centred  in  nature,  and 
is  constantly  ascending  towards  consciousness  by  the  action 
of  inherent  forces.  We  might  think  that  even  Emerson 
is  a  positivist,  when  he  says  that  the  plants  grope  ever 
upward  towards  consciousness  ;  but  he  is  not,  for  he  else- 
where teaches  that  it  is  the  going  forth  of  the  eternally 
conscious  "soul,"  ever  downward  from  the  higher  to  the 
lower  forms,  that  makes  nature.  The  development  of 
nature,  however  variously  expressed,  is  the  divine  mind 
taking  its  own  outgoings  back  into  itself. 

Thus,  rather  than  in  the  atheistic  sense,  are  we  to  under- 
stand Parker  when  he  seems  to  use  the  language  of  positiv- 
ism or  materialism.  "  I  have  been  into  man  with  my 
scalpel  in  my  hand,  and  my  microscope,  and  there  is  no 
soul.  Man  is  bones,  blood,  bowels,  and  brain.  Mind  is 
matter.  Do  you  doubt  this  ?  Here  is  Arnoldi's  perfect 

map  of  the  brain :  there  is  no  soul  there ;  noth- 
a  material-  ing  but  nerves."  x  He  puts  these  words  into  the 

mouth  of  an  imagined  teacher  of  materialism, 
and  so  far  from  accepting  the  doctrine  they  embody,  he 
utters  his  strong  abhorrence  of  it.  It  is  true  that  he  often 
speaks  kindly  of  atheists,  especially  while  contrasting  them 
with  orthodox  Christians,  for  whom  he  has  no  patience ; 
yet  he  does  not  leave  us  to  infer  from  this  that  he  has  any 
sympathy  with  atheism.  "  The  Christian  world,"  says  he, 
"  has  something  to  learn,  at  this  day,  even  from  the  athe- 

1   Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  19. 


PANTHEISM.  333 

ist ;  for  he  asks  entire  freedom  for  human  nature,  —  free- 
dom to  think,  freedom  to  will,  freedom  to  love,  freedom  to 
worship  if  he  will,  not  to  worship  if  he  will  not.  And  if 
the  Christian  world  had  granted  this  freedom,  then  there 
would  have  been  no  atheism.  If  theology  had  not  severed 
itself  from  science,  science  would  have  adorned  the  church 
with  its  magnificent  beauty.  Even  the  protests  against 
*  Christianity '  are  oftenest  made  by  men  full  of  the  reli- 
gious spirit.  Many  of  the  l  unbelievers '  of  this  age  are 
eminent  for  their  religion ;  atheists  are  often  made  such 
by  circumstances.  M.  Corate  must  have  a  new  Su- 
preme, —  Nbuveau  Grand  Etre,  —  and  recommends  daily 
prayers  to  his  composite  and  progressive  deity."  *  What 
Parker  here  says  of  the  duty  of  the  Christian  church  to 
admit  atheists  into  its  fellowship,  my  present  purpose  does 
not  require  me  to  notice  ;  but  in  denying,  as  he 
does,  the  possibility  of  atheism,  he  shows  that  possibility 

-...,„  of  atheism. 

he  is  not  a  disciple  of  any  a-postenon  system  of 
philosophy  or  religion.  No  one  could  speak  more  ear- 
nestly, or  more  feelingly  and  indignantly,  than  he,  against 
speculative  atheism.  It  is  in  a  strain  of  tearful  remon- 
strance almost,  that  he  exclaims,  "Take  away  my  con- 
sciousness of  God ;  let  me  believe  there  is  no  infinite  God ; 
no  infinite  Mind  which  thought  the  world  into  existence, 
and  which  thinks  it  into  continuance ;  no  infinite  Conscience 
which  everlastingly  enacts  the  eterjial  laws  of  the  universe, 
no  infinite  Afiection  which  loves  the  world,  —  then  I  should 
be  sadder  than  Egyptian  night.  Yes,  I  should  die  in 
uncontrollable  anguish  and  despair."2  Our  author  had 
been  accused  of  atheism,  by  some  of  those  who  undertook 

i  Sermons  of  Theism,  Introduction,  pp.  70,  72.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  29,  30. 


334  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

to  criticise  his  Discourse  of  Religion.  It  may  be,  there- 
fore, that  in  his  Sermons  of  Theism,  preached  some  years 
later,  he  spoke  more  strongly  than  he  otherwise  would,  in 
order  to  vindicate  himself  before  his  own  friends,  who 
were  firm  theists.  No  doubt,  also,  he  felt  lonely  in  that 
state  of  comparative  isolation  into  which  his  controversies 
had  driven  him ;  and  it  comforted  him,  more  than  at  an 
earlier  day,  to  believe  that  an  infinite  Friend  was  helping 
hini  in  his  hard  battles.  It  is  true  that  his  representations 
of  the  nature  of  God  are  somewhat  vague.  He  seems  to 
confuse  the  Creator  with  his  works,  in  saying  that  God 
"  thinks  the  world  into  existence  and  continuance."  Yet 
even  this  language,  though  indicating  that  his  theism  has 
something  peculiar  in  it,  strengthens  his  protest  ;•  nor  have 
we  any  reaspn  to  doubt,  what  he  so  earnestly  avers,  that 
there  was  no  tendency  in  his  thinking,  which  by  any 
possibility  could  have  carried  him  on  to  the  errors  of 
positivism. 

The  charge  of  vulgar  atheism,  brought  against  Parker, 
may  therefore  be  dismissed  as  wholly  untenable.  Nor  is 
evidence  wanting  that  Parker  held  stoutly  back,  on  the 
other  hand,  from  what  he  defines  as  pantheism.  "  Two 
things,"  he  says,  "  are  necessary  to  render  religion  possible ; 
namely,  a  religious  faculty  in  man,  and  God  out  of  man  as 
the  object  of  that  faculty."  l  The  phrase  "  God  out  of 
man"  seems  clear  and  decisive.  We  should  expect  it 
only  from  an  opponent  of  pantheism.  Speaking 

Denied  that        ,,       ,         ,  n        -i        •    /»  <•       i«    •          -r»i 

he  was  a        ot  what  he  calls  the  infancy  of  religion,  .rarker 

pantheist.  . 

says,  "Its  highest  form  was  the    sublime    but 
deceitful  reverence  which  the  old  Saba3an  paid  to  the  host 

1  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  151. 


PANTHEISM.  335 

of  heaven,  or  which  some  Grecian  or  Indian  philosopher 
offered  to  the  universe  personified,  and  called  Pan,  or 
Brahma.  God  was  worshipped  in  a  sublime  and  devout, 
but  bewildering  pantheism.  He  was  not  considered  as 
distinct  from  the  universe."  l  Pantheism,  then,  is  one  of 
the  earlier  forms  through  which  the  absolute  religion  has 
passed  in  the  process  of  historical  development.  Limiting 
his  view  to  the  form  only,  and  assuming  that  he  has  given 
an  exhaustive  statement  of  the  nature  of  all  pantheism,  he 
may  be  right  in  saying  that  he  is  not  a  pantheist.  And 
yet,  even  with  this  statement,  it  is  only  in  the  "transient" 
element  of  religion  that  he  makes  himself  to  differ  from 
the  Brahman.  A  different  dulture  induces  a  different  form, 
but  the  religion  itself  is  in  either  case  the  same,  being  ab- 
solute and  always  unchangeable  in  essence. 

The  manifest  anxiety  of  Parker  not  to  be  thought  a 
pantheist  is  at  times  suspicious.     Why  should  he  be  so 
fearful  of  that  of  which  he  is  wholly  unconscious  ?     This 
anxiety  may  account  for  the  narrow  and  inade- 
quate  definition   of  pantheism   which    he    lays   definition  is 

inadequate. 

down.  One  may  prove  that  he  differs  from  any 
doctrine  whatsoever,  if  allowed  to  define  it  as  he  pleases. 
Pantheism  is  not  altogether  an  ancient  thing.  It  has 
thriven  recently,  and  even  now  exists  ;  and  the  question  is 
whether  Parker's  speculations  have  anything  in  common 
with  this  modern  movement.  In  one  place,  after  denoun- 
cing positivism,  he  says,  "  Besides,  the  pantheists  tell  us  of 
their  God,  who  is  but  the  sum  total  of  the  existing  uni- 
verse of  matter  and  of  mind,  immanent  in  each,  but  tran- 
scending neither,  imprisoned  in  the  two ;  blind,  planless, 

1  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  53. 


336          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

purposeless,  without  consciousness,  or  will,  or  love ;  de- 
pendent on  the  shifting  phenomena  of  finite  mind  and  of 
finite  matter,  finite  itself;  a  continual  Becoming  this  or 
that,  not  absolute  Being,  self-subsistent,  and  eternally  the 
same  perfection  :  their  God  is  only  law,  the  constant  mode 
of  operation  of  objective  and  unconscious  force."  l  We 
are  amazed  that  any  respectable  writer  should  think  this  a 
fair  view  of  pantheism.  The  misrepresentations  of  Chris- 
tian thinkers,  which  Parker  published  at  different  times, 
have  long  been  familiar  to  us.  These  we  had  set  down  to 
prejudice,  and  to  that  one-sidedness  which  the  heat  of  con- 
troversy is  apt  to  beget.  It  now  appears,  however,  that 
the  friends  of  Christianity  are  not  an  exception ;  that 
Parker  misapprehends  the  system  taught  by  Fichte  and 
Emerson,  quite  as  strangely  as  evangelical  systems  ;  that 
his  inability  to  treat  an  opponent  candidly,  amounted  to  a 
constitutional  weakness.  If  the  idealistic  pantheism  of 
Germany  makes  God  "unconscious,"  "-finite,"  "not  abso- 
lute," "  dependent  on  shifting  phenomena,"  then  there  are 
no  pantheists.  Does  the  theism  of  Parker  require  this 
unfair  definition  of  pantheism,  in  order  that  it  may  continue 
to  be  theism  ?  If  so,  many  an  earnest  follower 
Spinoza.  °f  Spinoza  may  claim  to  be  a  theist ;  for  proba- 
bly not  one  of  them  would  accept  the  account 
our  author  gives  of  their  doctrine. .  Yet  Parker  is  not 
wanting  in  charity  towards  the  leaders  of  pantheistic 
thought  in  modern  times.  He  makes  his  narrow  definition 
acquit  them  together  with  himself.  He  allows  no  place 
to  the  object  of  his  dread,  outside  of  barbarism.  Fichte, 
Schelling,  and  Hegel  do  not  teach  pantheism ;  for  they  do 

i  Experience  a^a  Minister,  p.  147. 


PANTHEISM.  337 

not  teach  the  absurd  theory  he  describes.  He  assumes 
them  all  to  be  good  theists;  as  he  is,  judged  by  his  own 
definition ;  and  even  in  regard  to  Spinoza  he  says, 
"Pantheism  is  a  word  of  convenient  ambiguity,  and 
serves  as  well  to  express  the  odium  theologicum  as  the 
more  ancient  word  atheism."  l 

But  Parker  claims  to  be  mainly  in  agreement  with  these 
masters.  If  he  interprets  them  rightly,  what  they  would 
call  the  reflex  of  the  divine  consciousness  does  not  differ 
from  what  he  calls  the  feeling  of  dependence  in  man. 
And  if  he  knows.  God  by  a  direct  intuition,  as  manifest  in 
the  feeling  of  dependence,  then  his  doctrine  of  God  can- 
not be  at  a  great  remove  from  theirs.  This  similarity  of 
doctrine  evidently  did  not  escape  him ;  and  therefore,  to 
defend  himself,,  he  tries  to  show  that  Spinoza  and  his  suc- 
cessors had  been  misunderstood.  He  claims  that  they 
were  no  more  pantheists  than  the  mystics  of  the  middle 
ages,  or  the  evangelist  John ;  thus  leaving  us  to  infer  that 
such  men  as  Tauler,  and  the  beloved  disciple,  did  not,  any 
more  than  Hegel,  recognize  the  separate  existence  and 
personality  of  both  the  Creator  and  the  creature.  He 
says  in  one  place  that  the  question  between  the  pantheist 
and  pure  theist  is  this :  "  Is  G-od  the  immanent  cause  of 
the  world,  or  is  he  not?"  Now,  we  have  already  seen, 
and  shall  yet  further  see  more  positively,  that  Parker 
takes  the  affirmative  of  this  question.  He  re- 
peatedly speaks,  almost  in  the  exact  words  of  twug'wijw 
Spinoza,  who  says,  "God  is  the  immanent  or  the°namef 
indwelling,  not  the  transient  or  outside  cause 
of  all  things."2  Clearly,  then,  he  is  a  Spinozist  by  his 

1  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  91,  note.  2  Ethics,  Prop.  XVIII. 

22 


338          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

own  admission,  though  he  refuses  to  be  called  a  pan- 
theist. How  does  he  escape  the  odious  name  ?  It  is,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  by  resorting  to  a  definition  which 
does  not  cover  all  the  forms  of  pantheistic  thinking. 
"  Monotheism,"  he  says,  "  is  the  worship  of  one  supreme 
God.  He  may,  however,  be  supposed  to  manifest  himself 
in  one  form,  or  in  all  forms,  as  the  Pan  and  Brahma  of  the 
Greek  and  Indian ;  for  it  is  indifferent  whether  we  ascribe 
no  forms  or  all  forms  to  the  infinite."  1  But  that  is  a  sin- 
gular species  of  theism,  certainly,  which  teaches  that  the 
Greek  polytheism  did  not  differ  from  monotheism  essen- 
tially, and  which  saves  itself  by  asserting  that  the  infinite 
may  be  defined  under  any  form,  or  as  being  without  form. 
It  is  amazing,  considering  how  much  space  our  author 
devotes  to  the  subject,  that  he  succeeds  so  poorly  in  free- 
ing himself  from  the  charge  of  pantheism. 

I  proceed,  therefore,  to  trace  some  of  the  more 
tfv°ere  foofs  positive  indications,  in  Parker's  writings,  of  a 
fan?1"*116"  pantheistic  drift  in  what  he  calls  his  theism.  If 
I  seem  to  go  over  ground  already  traversed  in 
doing  this,  it  will  be  because  even  his  denials  of  pantheism 
do  not  deny,  so  much  as  affirm,  what  must  be  regarded  ns 
pantheistic  doctrine.  Let  me  further  say,  if  I  seem  to  any 
to  do  him  injustice  in  this  examination,  that  I  shall  at 
least  hope  to  misrepresent  him  less  than  he  does  Chris- 
tianity. I  may  fail  to  discern  the  tendency  of  his  doc- 
trine ;  but  I  can  hardly  be  guilty  of  such  mis'representa- 
tion  as  he  utters  when  he  says,  "  The  popular  theological 
i  Ion  represents  God  as  finite,  limited  subjectively  by  self 

I  See  Discourse  of  Religion,  pp.  80-92. 


PANTHEISM.  339 

ishness,  wrath,  aifd  various  evil  passions,  objectively  by 
elements  in  the  world  of  men  which  continually  prove 
refractory,  and  turn  out  as  he  did  not  intend." ] 

Here  it  is  to  be   observed   that   the   same   philosophy 
which  was  carried  out  into  pantheism  in  Germany,  gave 
direction  to  our  author's  inquiries   after  religious    truth. 
He  says,  "  I  found  most  help  in  the  works  of 
Immanuel  Kant.     If  he  did  not  always  furnish   Kantian 

i      •          T          n         <-    •      i,  4.1        Philosophy. 

conclusions  1  could  rest  in,  he  yet  gave  me  the 
method,  and  put  me  on  the  right  road." 2  Kant  did  for 
him,  that  is,  the  same  work  as  for  Fichte,  Schelling,  and 
Hegel ;  started  him  in  his  investigations,  but  did  not  go 
far  enough  to  satisfy  him.  Parker's  argument  for  the 
existence  of  God  is  that  of  the  transcendentalist.:  "  Now 
the  existence  of  this  religious  element,"  he  says,  "our 
experience  of  this  sense  of  dependence,  this  sentiment  of 
something  without  bounds,  is  itself  a  proof  by  implication 
of  the  existence  of  its  object,  —  something  on  which  de- 
pendence rests.  The  belief  in  God's  existence  is  there- 
fore natural,  not  against  nature.  It  comes,  as  the  belief  in 
light  comes,  by  using  the  eyes.  The  knowledge  of  God's 
existence  may  be  called  an  intuition  of  reason.  Our  be- 
lief in  God  rests  not  on  a-priori  or  a-posteriori  arguments ; 
on  no  argument;  not  on  reasoning,  but  reason.  The 
arguments  a-priori  and  a-posteriori  confirm  our  belief."3 
Thus  far  some  of  the  foremost  of  Christian  theologians 
would  agree  with  Parker.  It  is  when  he  begins  to  define 
his  theism,  when  he  speaks  of  the  nature  of  the  God  he 
finds  in  reason,  that  we  cannot  go  with  him.  "  Specula- 

i  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  157.  3  Experience  as  a  Minister,  p.  42. 

3  Discourse  of  Religion,  pp.  19,  21,  22. 


340          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

tive  theism."  he  says,  "is  the  belief  in  the  ex- 

His  defini- 
tion of  God     istence  of  God,  in  one  form  or  another;  and  I 

does  not 

exclude         call  him  a  theist  who  believes  in  any  God.     A 

pantheism. 

man  may  deny  actuality  to  the  Hebrew  idea  of 
God,  to  the  Christian  idea  of  God,  or  to  the  Mahometan 
idea  of  God,  and  yet  be  no  atheist."  *  "  A  man  says,  there 
is  no  God.  But  he  says,  Nature — meaning  by  that  the 
whole  sum-total  of  existence  —  is  powerful,  wise,  and 
good ;  Nature  is  self-originated,  the  cause  of  its  own  ex- 
istence, the  mind  of  the  universe,  and  the  providence 
thereof.  Very  well.  In  such  cases,  the  absolute  denial 
of  God  is  only  formal,  not  real.  The  quality  of  God  is 
still  admitted,  and  affirmed  to  be  real ;  only  the  represen- 
tative of  that  quality  is  called  Nature,  and  not 

uieilts?  called  God-  That  is  only  a  change  of  name."2 
As  if  this  were  not  errough  to  make  clear  the 
pantheistic  drift  of  his  theism,  our  author  says,  in  close 
connection,  "  Spinoza  may  call  God  natura  naturans,  but 
he  admits  the  existence  of  the  thing  so  diversely  entitled. 
The  name  ivS  of  the  smallest  consequence."3  Of  the 
smallest  consequence,  surely,  if,  as  he  says  in  another 
place,  "  There  is  but  one  religion,  as  one  ocean  ;  though 
we  call  it  faith  in  our  church,  and  infidelity  out  of  our 
church." 4 

It  is  difficult  at  times  to  make  out  the  entire  consistency 
of  Parker.  In  one  connection  he  condemns  the  later  pan- 
theism of  Germany,  saying,  "That  is  a  fatal  error  with 
Hegel,  and  with  his  followers  in  England  and  America." 5 

i  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  4.  2  Ibid.,  p.  9. 

s  Ibid.  4  Discourse  of  Religion,  Introd.,  pp.  6,  7. 

5  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  155. 


PANTHEISM.  341 

But  this  criticism  is  based  on  a  false  imputation.  It 
assumes  certain  errors,  which  Hegel  and  his  followers, 
whatever  their  mistakes,  do  not  hold.  Parker  here 
charges  upon  them  that  gross  pantheism  which  is  all  that 
his  own  narrow  definition  allows.  He  seems  to  forget  his 
apology  for  them  in  another  place,  where  he  gives  a  less 
inaccurate  statement  of  their  views.  "  There  are  two 
classes  of  philosophers,"  he  says,  "  often  called  atheists ; 
but  better,  and  perhaps  justly,  called  pantheists.  One  of 
these  says,  '  There  are  only  material  things  in  existence, 
resolving  all  into  matter ;  the  sum-total  of  these  material 
things  is  God.'  That  is  material  pantheism.  If  I  mistake 
not,  M.  Comte,  of  Paris,  and  the  anonymous  author  of 
*  Vestiges  of  Natural  History  in  Creation,'  with  their  nu- 
merous coadjutors,  belong  to  this  class.  The 

,  .   .  Misrepre- 

other  class  admits  the  existence  ot  spirit,  some-      sents  pan- 
theists. 
times  resolves  everything  into  spirit,  and  says, 

4  The  sum-total  of  finite  spirit,  that  is  God.'  These  are 
spiritual  pantheists.  Several  of  the  German  philosophers, 
if  I  understand  them,  are  of  that  stamp."  1  Evidently  our 
author  does  not  "  understand  them,"  if  he  really  believes 
that  they  resolve  all  things  into  "  finite  "  spirit.  By  hte 
definition,  Hegel  himself  was  not  a  Hegelian.  We  are 
left  to  infer  that  Parker  had  no  clear  or  fixed  views  of  the 
two  grand  and  conflicting  systems  of  philosophy.  He 
must  show  not  only  that  he  is  not  a  Comtist,  and  that  he 
rejects  the  crude  theories  here  imputed  by  him  to  Hegel, 
but  that  he  has  no  sympathy  with  what  we  know  to  be 
the  real  Hegelianism,  if  he  would  prove  that  he  is  not  a 
pantheist.  His  denial  of  the  imaginary  doctrine  is  so  put 

i  Sermons  of  Theism,  pp.  154,  155. 


342  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

as  to  affirm  the  actual  doctrine  taught  by  Spinoza  and  his 
successors.  .  He  says  that  the  pantheism  he  disowns  rep- 
resents God  as  in  a  state  of  progressive  development.1 
But  this  is  the  doctrine  of  Comte's  pqsitive  religion.  It 
is  as  far  from '•real  pantheism  as  the  east  is  from  the 
west.  The  later  German  philosophers  held  no  such  doc- 
trine;  nor  Carlyle,  nor  Emerson.  He  does  those"  writers 
great  injustice  when  he  says  that  they  thus  believe  and 
teach.  They  believe  in  the  eternal  completeness  of  God 
as  firmly  as  he.  He  confounds  the  fact  with  the  manifes- 
tation, the  Being  with  the  Becoming.  They  say  God  is 
Being;  only  in  what  we  call  our  knowing  him,  is  he  a  Be- 
coming. If  Parker's  definition  .acquits  himself,  it  acquits 
Emerson.  But  it  foils  to  make  out  a  clear  case  of  theism 
for  either,  since  it  does  not  touch  the  real  ground  of  dis- 
tinction. 

Having  said  that  he  dissents  from  pantheism  as  defined 

by  himself  and  as  he  wrongly  ascribes  it  on  the  one  hand 

to   Comte  and  on  the  other  to  Hegel  and  his  followers, 

Parker  goes   on   to  utter  words,  almost  in  the 

Identifies  . 

God  with       next  sentence,  which   harmonize  perfectly  with 

the  world.  ... 

the  main  principles  of  the  pantheists.  "  There 
is  no  point  of  space,  no  atom  of  matter,"  he  says,  "but 
God  is  there."  2  How  can  he  claim  that  he  holds  to  a 
God  distinct  from  the  world,  after  saying,  "  Finite  matter 
and  finite  spirit  do  not  exhaust  God.  He  transcends  the 
world  of  matter  and  of  spirit,  and  in  virtue  of  that  tran- 
scendence continually  makes  the  world  of  matter  fairer, 
and  the  world  of  spirit  wiser."  3  This  is  saying  that  all  of 
God  is  not  yet  manifested ;  but  it  does  not  separate  him 

*  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  155.     •  2  Ibid.,  p.  150.  s  ibid. 


PANTHEISM.  343 

from  the  world,  and  make  him  an  independent  existence. 
Wittingly  or  unwittingly,  Parker  speaks  with  the  panthe- 
ist when  he  says  "  There  is  really  a  progress  in  the  mani- 
festation of  God,  but  not  a  progress  in  God  the  mani- 
festing." 1  Spinoza  could  accept  that  statement,  both  as 
to  its  affirmation  and  its  denial.  We  think  our  author  is 
going  to  proclaim  himself  a  veritable  theist,  when  he  says, 
"  God  must  be  different  in  kind  from  the  world  of  matter 
and  of  man."  But  in  the  next  breath  he  changes  ground? 
and  speaks  of  that  difference  as  being  only  in  degree: 
"They  are  finite,  he  infinite;  they  dependent,  he  self-sub- 
sisting", they  variable,  he  unchanging.  God  must  include 
both  matter  and  spirit."  2  If  the  only  difference  between 
God  and  the  universe  be  that  one  is  infinite  and  the  other 
finite,  then  are  they  the  same  qualitatively.  And  if  the 
universe  be  but  the  progressive  manifestation  of  God, 
what  is  there  besides  God  ?  Schelling  could  not  teach  the 
doctrine  of  identity  in  plainer  terms.  The  doctrine  that 
"  all  difference  is  quantitative,"  cannot  be  pantheism  in 
Germany  and  good  theism  in  America. 

In  his  efforts  to  contrast  the  human  and  divine,  Parker 
makes  no  mention  of  distinct  personalities,  but  says, 
"  Man's  consciousness  of  God  and  God's  consciousness  of 
himself  must  differ  immeasurably.  No  man  can  have  an  ex- 
haustive conception  of  God,  —  one,  I  mean,  which  uses  up 
and  comprises  the  whole  of  God."  3  To  some 
even  this  utterance  may  not  seem  to  bring  our  With  God 

suhject  and 


author  clearly  out  on  pantheistic  ground.  But 
can  there  be  any  doubt  after  the  following? 
"In  the  self-consciousness  of  God  subject  and  object  are 

*  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  156.  2  ibid.,  p.  154,  3  ibid.,  p.  153. 


344          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

the  same,  and  he  must  know  all  his  own  infinite  nature." 1 
Certainly,  if  there  be  no  pantheism  here,  we  must  con- 
clude with  Talleyrand,  that  words  were  made  to  conceal 
thought,  and  not  to  express  it.  It  is  a  significant  fact 
also,  in  view  of  this  bold  utterance,  that  Parker,  while 
careful  to  show  how  he  differs  from  deism  and  atheism, 
forgets  his  usual  caution  on  the  other  side,  not  even  allud- 
ing to  pantheism.  His  words  embody  the  doctrine  of 
Schelling,  almost  in  Schelling's  own  terms ;  yet  he  no- 
where applies  to  that  doctrine  the  name  which  would  in- 
dicate its  real  nature,  but  couples  that  name  with  a  false 
.definition  of  his  own.  "  I  use  the  word  theism,"  he  says, 
"  as  distinguished  from  atheism,  the  denial  of  God ;  from 
the  popular  theology,  which  afirms  a  finite  ferocious 
God  ;  and  from  deism,  which  affirms  a  finite  God  without 
ferocity." 2  Deism  is  better  than  Christianity,  for  its  God 
is  "without  ferocity,"  though  still  "finite."  "It  starts 
The  f-mit  of  from  tne  sensational  philosophy,  and  abuts  in 
deism.  materialism,  leaving  out  of  sight  the  intuition  of 

human  nature."  3  The  superiority  of  Parker's  theism,  he 
claims,  is  that  it  begins  in  consciousness,  and  avoids  the 
finiteness,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  as  we  shall  soon 
see,  the  personality  of  the  God  of  deism. 

Parker  preached  several  glowing  discourses  on  the  sub- 
ject of  immortality.     Here  certainly  was  an  opportunity, 
if  he  desired  it,  to  state  his  belief  in  the  personal  and  con- 
scious   existence    of   men    after    death,   which 
immortality   would   have   gone   far   to  disprove  his  alleged 
sympathy  with   pantheism.     But   he    made  no 
such  use  of  that  opportunity.     He  goes  no  further  than  tc 

i  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  154.  2  Ibid.,  p.  152.  s  Ibid. 


PANTHEISM.  345 

say,  alluding  to  those  discourses  years  after,  "  The  in- 
stinctive intuition  of  the  immortal,  a  consciousness  that 
the  essential  element  of  man,  the  principle  of  individuality, 
never  dies,"  had  been  a  prominent  topic  in  his  preacnlng.  * 
Here  may  be  a  faith  broad  enough  for  fancy  and  imagina- 
tion, and  wherewith  to  delight  undiscriminating  hearers  ; 
but  surely  one  must  hold  to  something  more  than  the  im- 
mortality of  "  the  essential  element  of  man,"  in  order  to 
teach  that  the  future  life  will  be  so  related  to  the  present 
that  memory  may  join  them  together  as  experiences  of  the 
same  person,  —  which  is  the  only  idea  of  immortality  at 
all  inspiring,  or  even  intelligible  to  us.  Our  bodies  are 
immortal,  in  the  sense  that  the  particles  of,  matter  which 
make  them  are  forever  reappearing  in  other  forms.  They 
never  perish.  Emerson  has  discoursed  of  immortality  to 
the  editi cation  of  Christian  worshippers.  But  what  they 
took  for  the  immortality  of  the  person  as  now  living  and 
conscious,  he  seems  to  have  meant  only  for  the  eternity  of 
the  impersonal  "  soul "  which  fills  all  things.  There  is  no 
valid  proof  that  Parker's  doctrine  differed  essentially  from 
his;  and  he  declares  that  if  we  raise  the  question  of  the 
immortality  of  the  conscious  individual,  looking  to  the 
future,  and  not  wholly  satisfied  with  the  present,  we  are 
"already  fallen." 

We  have  seen  that  Parker,  after  saying  that  the  ques- 
tion between  the  pantheist  and  theist  is  one  of 

...  „    s~<     -.    .        ,  God  imma- 

the   immanency  of  God  in  the  world,  seems  to     nent  in  ail 
side  with  the   former.      He   repeatedly   makes 
statements  which  go  to  show,  if  he  did  not  take  that  side, 
that  he   considered   it   as   differing  only  by  the   faintest 

1  Experience  as  a  Minister,  p.  42. 


346          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

shade  from  the  other.  In  giving  his  experience  as  a  min- 
ister, he  says,  "I  believed  yi  the  immanence  of  God  in 
man,  as  well  as  matter,  his  activity  in  both."1  "The  in- 
finitely perfect  God  is  immanent  in  the  world  of  matter, 
and  in  the  world  of  spirit;  each  particle  thereof  is  insep- 
arable from  him,  while  he  transcends  both.  There  must 
be  a  complete  solidarity  between  God  and  the  twofold 
universe."2  Still  more  decisively  he  says,  in  his  Discourse 
of  Religion,  "The  material  world,  with  its  objects  sub- 
limely great  or  meanly  little,  as  we  judge  them  ;  its  atoms 
of  dust,  its  orbs  of  fire;  the  rock  that  stands  by  the  sea- 
shore, the  water  that  wears  it  away  ;  the  worm,  a  birth  of 
yesterday,  which  we  trample  under  our  foot ;  the  streets 
of  constellations  that  gleam  perennial  overhead  ;  the  as- 
piring palm  tree  fixed  to  one  spot,  and  the  lions  that  are 
sent  out  free,  —  these  incarnate  and  make  visible  to  us  all 
of  God  their  several  natures  will  admit." 3  "  God,  then,  is 
universally  present  in  the  world  of  matter.  He 
*'God  is  is  the  substantiality  of  matter.  No  atom  of 

the  substan- 
tiality of        matter  so  despised  and  little  but  God,  the  In- 

mutter,  x 

finite,  is  there.  God  is  immanent  in  the  world, 
however  much  he  transcends  the  world. .  He  is  the  ground 
of  nature ;  what  is  permanent  in  the  passing ;  what  is 
real  in  the  apparent.  All  nature,  then,  is  but  an  exhibition 
of  God  to  the  senses.  It  is  the  fulness  of  God  that  flows 
into  the  crystal  of  the  rock,  the  juices  of  the  plant,  the  life  ' 
of  the  emmet  and  the  elephant." 4  Do  not  these  extracts 
confirm  the  view,  that  all  searching  after  truth,  which  is 
independent  of  divine  guidance,  must  at  last  come  either 

i  Experience  as  a  Minister,  p.  3&  2  Ibid.,  pp.  80,  81. 

3  Discourse  of  Religion,  pp.  104, 165.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  161,  162,  163. 


PANTHEISM.  347 

to  the  position  of  Spinoza  or  to  that  of  Comte  ?  It  is  not 
in  the  power  of  language  to  state,  if  they  do  not,  the 
identity  of  God  with  the  world.  If  God  is  "  the  substan- 
tiality of  matter,"  I  do  our  author  no  injustice,  but  rather 
state  the  case  in  its  mildest  possible  form  when  I  say  that 
there  was  in  his  theism  a  drifting  towards  pantheism. 

On  the  subject  of  a  person's  responsibility  for 
the  form  of  religious  faith  he  may  hold,  Parker  responsible 

J  for  the  re- 

Speaks  after  the  manner  of  Goethe  and  Carlyle.   %ion  they 

hold. 

All  the  religions  of  the  world  are  forms  of  the 
absolute  religion,  which  manifests  itself  thus  variously  by 
virtue  of  fixed  law.  The  faiths  of  men  cannot  be  other 
than  they  are.  The  religion  which  exists  necessarily  in  all 
is  bearing  them  on,  through  whatever  temporary  forms,  to 
the  same  blessedness ;  and  this  high  result  is  sure  to  be 
reached,  irrespective  of  any  free  volitions  they  may  put 
forth.  He  says,  "  All  men  are  at  bottom  the  same  ;  but  as 
no  two  nations  or  ages  are  exactly  alike  in  character,  cir- 
cumstances, or  development,  so  therefore,  though  the  re- 
ligious element  be  the  same  in  all,  we  must  expect  to  find 
that  its  manifestations  are  never  exactly  alike  in  any  two 
ages  or  nations,  though  they  give  the  same  name  to  their 
form  of  worship.  From  the  difference  between 

,...     Different 

men,  it  follows,  that  there  must  be  as  many  dif-  religions  a 

„  _  necessity  of 

ferent  subiective  conceptions  of  God,  and  forms    circum- 
stances. 
of  religion,  as  there  are  men  and  women  who 

think  about  God,  and  apply  their  thoughts  and  feelings  to 
life.  The  phenomena  of  religion,  like  those  of  science  and 
art,  must  vary  from  land  to  land,  and  age  to  age,  with  the 
varying  civilization  of  mankind ;  must  be  one  thing  in 
New  Zealand,  and  the  first  *  century,  and  be  something 


348          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

quite  different  in  New  England,  and  the  fifty-ninth  century. 
They  must  be  one  thing  in  the  wise  man,  and  another  in 
the  foolish  man.  They  must  vary  also  in  the  same  indi- 
vidual. The  religion  of  the  boy  and  the  man,  of  Saul  the 
youth  and  Paul  the  aged,  how  differently  they  appear ! "  l 
But  there  are  men,  intelligent  thinkers  of  the  fifty-ninth  cen- 
tury, quite  able  to  find  out  what  their  own  belief  is,  with 
no  help  from  Parker,  who  claim  to  hold  the  religious  faith 
of  the  first  century ;  nor  is  it  at  all  likely  that  Paul,  whose 
opinion  in  the  case  must  be  regarded  as  at  least  equal  to 
Parker's,  was  conscious  of  one  way  of  salvation  when  he 
repented  at  Damascus,  and  of  another  when  he  wrote  to 
Timothy.  The  Christian  religion  is  the  same  now  that  it 
was  in  the  beginning ;  nor  is  there  any  state  of  society, 
however  refined  or  however  rude,  to  which  it  is  not  equally 
adapted.  But  granting  that  Parker  has  the  facts  of  his- 
tory on  his  side,  the  thing  to  be  noticed  in  what  he  says  is, 
that  a  stern  necessity  has  fixed  men  in  their  various  beliefs, 
—  which  beliefs  are  not  essentially  different,  but  at  bottom 

one  universal -religion.  All  is  the  same,  and  all 
same  at  inevitable  ;  a  statement  which  accords  perfectly 

with  the  views  of  acknowledged  pantheists. 
"  The  religion  of  each  is  the  same,  distinguished  only  by 
the  more  or  less."  2  Again  he  says,  after  having  spoken 
of  fetichism,  polytheism,  dualism,  pantheism,  monotheism, 
"  Each  of  these  forms  represented  an  idea  of  the  popular 
consciousness  which  passed  for  a  truth,  or  it  could  not  be 
embraced  ;  for  a  great  truth,  or  it  could  not  prevail  widely ; 
yes,  for  all  of  truth  the  man  could  receive  at  the  time  he 
embraced  it.  We  creep  before  walking.  Mankind  has 

1  Discourse  of  Religion,  pp.  47,  48,  49.  2  Ibid.,  p.  99. 


PANTHEISM.  349 

likewise  an  infancy,  though  it  will  at  length  put  away 
childish  things..  Each  of  these  forms  did  the  world  service 
in  its  day."  l 

By  his  own  showing,  therefore,  Parker's  religious  theory 
is  not  a  finality,  but  a  tendency  towards  something  else  ; 
and  that  drift  is  the  result  of  a  force  as  resist- 

An  endless 

less  as  that  which  moves  the  planets  through   siu-cesKhm 

1  of  religions. 

space.  "  To  censure  or  approve  Catholicism,  or 
Protestantism,  is  to  censure  or  approve  the  state  of  the 
race  which  gave  rise  tcf  those  forms.  They  could  not  have 
been  but  as  they  were.  To  condemn  them  is  to  condemn 
the  absolute  religion  ;  is  to  condemn  both  God  and  man."  2 
Orthodox  Christians  should  remember  this  passage,  when 
suffering  under  that  wrath  which  Parker  so  often  pours 
out  on  their  heads.  It  is  only  by  a  figure  of  rhetoric  that 
they  are  at  all  culpable.  His  scorching  invective,  provided 
he  spoke  from  his  theory,  was  not  meant  for  them,  but  for 
"  the  state  of  the  race,"  which  has  made  them  what  they 
are.  And  why  he  is  so  enraged  at  this,  we  are  still  puzzled 
to  know  ;  for  the  immanent  God  is  in  every  "  atom  "  there- 
of, and  it  is  ever  opening  out,  through  the  necessity  of  the 
divine  inworking,  into  the  more  blessed  and  more  fair. 
"  The  history  of  man's  religious  consciousness,"  he  says, 
"  seems  to  be  a  series  of  revolutions.  What  is  to-day 
built  up  with  prayers  and  tears,  is  to-morrow  pulled  down 
with  shouting  and  bloodshed,  giving  place  to  a  new  fabric 
equally  transient.  Prophets  were  mistaken,  and  saints 
confounded.  Religious  history  is  a  tale  of  confusion.  But 
looking  deeper,  we  see  it  is  a  series  of  developments,  all 
tending  towards  one  great  and  beautiful  end,  the  harmoni- 

i  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  102. 


Of 

UHI7BRSIT7 


350          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

/••ous  development  of  man.  The  circle  of  his  vision  becomes 
wider  continually,  his  ideal  more  fair  and  sublime."  l  We 
deny  that  man  has  reached  any  fairer  religious  ideal  than 
grew  up  in  Galilee  eighteen  centuries  ago.  Bnt  granting 
this  again,  we  see  the  pantheistic  doctrine  of  necessity 
which  Parker  holds.  The  everlasting  progress  of  man  in 
religion  is  not  kept  up  by  any  supernatural  helps, 
nor  by  gradually  learning  to  choose  good  rather  than  evil, 
but  is  all  the  while  only  the  spontaneous  unfold- 

The  panthe-    .  ... 

istic  fatal-      mg   oi    a   religious   nature.     Speaking    of    the 

ism.  . 

religious  element  in  man,  he  says,  "  In  my  own 
consciousness  I  found  it  to  be  automatic."  2  "  Each  form 
of  religion  has  grown  out  of  the  condition  of  some  people, 
as  naturally  as  the  wild  primitive  flora  of  Santa  Cruz  has 
come  from  the  state  of  the  island ;  as  naturally  as  the 
dependent  fauna  of  the  place  comes  from  its  flora."  3  After 
this  full  statement  of  the  law  of  necessity,  under  which 
Parker  makes  the  religious  sentiment  eternally  act,  a  neces- 
sity as  relentless  as  the  pantheist's  fatalism,  and  in  appear- 
ance the  same,  we  are  prepared  for  his  unbounded  toler- 
ance. This,  however  he  may  forget  it  in  the  heat  of 
debate,  is  fully  equal  to  that  of  Goethe,  who  makes  even 

wickedness  divine.  It  admits  into  its  paradise 
toStioii.  the  greatest  sinner,  with  the  same  abundant 

entrance  as  the  greatest  saint,  saying,  "  Many  a 
savage,  his  hands  smeared  all  over  with  the  blood  of 
human  sacrifice,  shall  come  from  the  east  and  the  west,  and 
sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  with  Moses  and  Zoroaster, 
with  Socrates  and  Jesus." 4 

k 

1  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  105.  2  Experience  as  a  Minister,  p.  41. 

s  Ibid.,  p.  86.  «  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  107. 


PANTHEISM.  351 

The  immanency  of  God  in  the  world,  as  held  by  Parker, 
might  not  be  an  evidence  of  pantheism  if  he  had  anywhere 
clearly  asserted  the  doctrine  of  second  causes.  But  he 
denies  this  doctrine,  at  least  by  implication,  allowing  no 
real  efficiency  to  man  even,  and  making  God  the  one  pro- 
ducing cause  of  all  things.  What  we  call  our  freedom,  he 
calls  "  oscillation."  "  In  the  world  of  nature,  not 
endowed  with  animal  life,  there  is,"  he  says,  "  no  ^T™1 
margin  of  oscillation.  In  the  world  of  animals 
there  is  a  small  margin  of  oscillation.  But  man  has  a 
certain  amount  of  freedom  ;  a  larger  amount  of  oscillation, 
wherein  he  vibrates  from  side  to  side."  *  So  far  as  the 
final  result  is  concerned,  however,  it  is  indifferent  whether 
we  say  "  man  has  no  freedom  of  will  at  all,"  or  "  some 
freedom  of  will."  "  There  can  be  no  absolute  evil  or  im- 
perfection in  the  world  of  man,  more  than  in  the  world  of 
matter,  or  in  God  himself."  2  "  Creation  and  providence 
are  but  modifications  of  the  same  function. 
Creation  is  momentary  providence  ;  providence 


perpetual  creation  ;  one  is  described  by  a  point,      game!  th 
the  other  by  a  line.     Now,  God  is  just  as  much 
present  in  a  blade  of  grass,  or  an  atom  of  mahogany,  this 
clay  and  every  moment  of  his  existence,  as  he  was  at  the 
instant  of  its  creation."  3     Thus  providence  is  the  same 
thing  as  creation,  and  creation  is  the  same  as  emanation, 
according  to  our  author,  for  besides  this  statement  he  else- 
where says,  "  There  can  be  nothing  in  nature 
which  God  did  not  put  in  nature  from  himself."  4      action  of 

.  nature 

"  God  is  responsible  for  his  creation,  his  world      God's 

action. 

of  matter  and  his  world  of  man  ;  for  mankind 

1  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  167.  *  Ibid.,  p.  170. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  160.  «  Ibid.,  p.  158. 


352          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

in  general ;  for  you  and  for  me." *  "  The  immanence  of 
God  in  nature  is  the  basis  of  his  influence."' 2  "  The  man 
with  pure  theism  in  his  heart  looks  out  on  the  world,  and 
there  is  the  infinite  God  everywhere  as  perfect  cause, 
everywhere  as  perfect  providence,  transcending  all,  yet 
immanent  in  each;  with  perfect  power,  wisdom,  justice, 
holiness,  and  love,  securing  perfect  welfare  unto  each  and 
all." 3  "  The  powers  of  nature,  —  that  of  gravitation, 
electricity,  growth, — what  are  they  but  modes  of  God's 
action  ?  " 4  These  mighty  agents  have  not  even  an  instru- 
mental function  in  themselves ;  they  are  the  immanent 
essence  of  all  things,  coming  forth  in  various  forms.  "  All 
the  natural  action  in  the  material  world  is  God's  action, 
whether  the  wind  blows  a  plank,  and  the  shipwrecked 
woman  who  grasps  it,  to  the  shore,  or  scatters  a  fleetr,  and 
sends  families  to  the  bottom." 5 

There  are  statements  in  the  writings  of  Parker  which 
would  indicate  that  he  held  the  mathematical  method 
of  proof,  as  applied  by  Spinoza  to  the  principles  of  the 
Cartesian  philosophy.  He  says,  in  one  place,  that  the  hu- 
man faculties  can  "  ascertain  truth  in  religious  matters,  as 
in  philosophical  or  mathematical  matters."6 
mathemat  And  in  another  place  he  sa\rs,  "  The  truth  of 

ical  method.  .' 

the  human  faculties  must  be  assumed  in  all  our 
arguments,  and  if  this  be  admitted,  we  have  the  same 
evidence  for  spiritual  facts  -as  for  the  maxims  or  demon- 
strations of  geometry." 7  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that 

i  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  174.  2  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  170. 

»  Theism,  p.  179.  *  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  103. 

B  Ibid.,  p.  158.  6  Sermons  of  Theism,  p.  152. 

f  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  19  (note). 


PANTHEISM.  353 

our  author  held  to  this  method  as  the  proper  guide  in  the 
search  for  religious  truth.  And  if  he  did  believe  that  all 
truth  can  be  mathematically  proved,  he  must  have  known 
that  he  was  a  pantheist.  For  this  method  of  proof,  ap- 
plied rigidly  to  the  analysis  of  the  religious  sentiment, 
which  is  the  central  principle  of  his  system,  affords  no 
resting-place  short  of  Spinozism. 

I  shall  adduce  but  one  other  fact  here,  as  indicating  a 
pantheistic  drift  in  Parker's  speculations,  —  his  view  of 
the  divine  personality.     This  subject,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  is  considered  as  giving  a  decisive  test   £ali!"pe*: 
to  the  religious  thinker.     One  definition  of  pan- 
theism is,  that  it  is  the  denial  of  the  personality  of  God. 
The  personality  of  God  is  certainly  the  especial  stumbling- 
block  of  the  pantheist,  the  shibboleth  which  he  cannot 
utter.     Parker  has  much  to  say  of  the  mind,  conscience, 
affection,  will  of  God,  which  in  itself  might  satisfy  any 
theist;    but    he    uniformly   denies    personality    to    God. 
What  the  nature  of  the  attributes  just  named  can  be,  or 
how  God  can  awaken  our  love  and  homage  if  he  be  im- 
personal, we  think  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  author  to 
explain.     It  does  not  clear  up  the  matter  to  say  that  per- 
sonality is  the  same  as   anthropomorphism,  and 
that  Parker  denies  to  God  only  what  is  meant   eonality  the 

same  as  an- 

by  this  latter  term.     The  words  have  broadly   thropomor- 

J     phism. 

different  meanings.  It  requires  no  great  learn- 
ing or  insight  to  conceive  of  persons  other  than  men,  per- 
sons having  for  the  most  part  superhuman  qualities.  To 
recognize  the  personal  existence  of  God  is  a  different 
thing  from  making  him  such  a  one  as  ourselves.  This  is 
an  act  of  irreverence  against  which  the  Scriptures  warn 
23 


354          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

us,  even  while  a  personal  God  is  the  object  of  worship 
they  reveal.  The  distinction  is  one  which  the  untutored 
intellect  may  see ;  nor  could  our  author  have  overlooked 
it,  though,  to  break  the  force  of  the  more  pantheistic  word, 
he  sometimes  joins  the  two  together.  In  his  Discourse  of 
Religion  he  says,  "  The  feelings,  fear,  reverence,  devotion, 
love,  naturally  personify  God;  humanize  the  Deity." 
Thus  is  God  made  personal  only  as  any  object  in  nature 
may  be ;  that  is,  by  personification.  It  is  rhe- 
S0(?nVyrin°a  torically,  by  a  figure  of  speech,  but  in  no  other 
sense"™1  Wa7>  that  God  can  have  personality.  The  thing 
is  not  objective  and  real,  but  altogether  subjec- 
tive. "  Some  rude  men  require  this,"  he  says,  but  adds, 
"  It  must  be  remembered  all  this  is  poetry.  This  personal 
and  anthropomorphitic  conception  is  a  phantom  of  the  brain 
that  has  no  existence  independent  of  ourselves."  1  "  There 
has  been  dogmatism  enough  respecting  the  nature,  essence, 
and  personality  of  God.  It  avails  nothing.  As  the  abso- 
lute cause,  God  must  contain  in  himself,  potentially,  the 
ground  of  consciousness,  of  personality,  —  yes,  of  uncon- 
sciousness and  impersonality."2  This  statement  certainly 
identifies  God,  in  substance,  with  all  existence ;  and  also 
reminds  us  of  Hegel's  doctrine  that  being  and  non-being 
are  the  same.  Not  only  may  God  be  considered 
as  neither  personal  nor  impersonal,  since  he  is 
onty  potentially  either  one  or  the  other,  but  we 
cannot  say  that  he  is  conscious  or  unconscious, 
since  in  regard  to  these  states  there  is  not  the  actuality, 
but  only  the  ground  or  possibility.  It  is  just  as  true  that 
God  is  impersonal  and  unconscious,  as  that  he  is  personal 

1  Discourse  of  Religion,  pp.  156,  157.  2  Ibid.,  p.  154,  153. 


PANTHEISM.  355 

and  conscious.  In  another  place,  as  we  saw,  Parker  spoke 
of  the  importance  of  "a  God  out  of  man."  Here  he  seems 
to  consider  it  a  matter  of  no  importance  at  all.  "  The 
greatest  religious  souls  that  have  ever  been,"  he  says, 
"are  content  to  fall  back  on  the  sentiment  and  idea  of 
God." :  "  God  is  nowhere  in  particular,  but 

God  is  nni- 

every where   in    general,  essentially  and   vitally   versa!  be- 
omnipresent.     Denying  all  particular  form,  we 
must  affirm  of  him  universal  being."2 

I  have  now  stated  the  evidence,  found  in  Parker's  writ- 
ings, which  convinces  me  that  I  do  him  no  wrong  by 
bringing  him  within  the  limits  of  a  treatise  on  pantheistic 
thinking.  His  religious  theorizing  may  not  have  come  to 
its  logical  conclusion,  even  in  his  own  view ;  but  its  ten- 
dency was  the  same  as  that  of  Spinoza,  Hegel,  Emerson. 
He  was  sailing  the  same  voyage,  and  would  have  reached 
the  same  port  by  keeping  on.  The  fact  that  his  ship 
went  down  in  mid-ocean  does  not  prove  that  it  was  headed 
some  other  way.  That  he  is  to  be  judged  by 
his  tendency,  rather  than  the  conclusions  he  juried  by 

hi  s tendency. 

had  clearly  reached,  seems  evident  ironi  his  own 
words.  He  said,  near  the  close  of  his  life,  that  one  of  his 
deepest  regrets  in  dying  was,  that  he  must  leave  his  sys- 
tem incomplete.  "  The  will  to  live,"  he  writes  from  Santa 
Cruz,  "is  exceedingly  strong;  more  "vehement  than  ever 
before,  as  I  have  still  much  to  do,  —  some  things  to  begin 
upon,  and  many  more  now  lying  half  done,  that  I  alone 
can  finish ;  and  I  should  not  like  the  little  I  have  done  to 

1  Discourse  of  Religion,  p.  154.  2  Ibid.,  p.  158. 


356          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

» 

perish  now  for  lack  of  a  few  years'  work." l  Undoubtedly 
it'  will  be  better,  in  replying  to  the  views  of  Parker, 
whether  as  stated  by  himself  or  his  disciples,  not  to  im- 
pute to  them  decided  and  intentional  pantheism.  He,  and 
those  who  more  especially  represent  his  views,  have  chosen 
to  be  called  THEISTS.  Let  them  bear  the  name 
Atheism?  tne7  nave  assumed.  I  indicated,  near  the  be- 
ginning of  this  lecture,  the  line  of  refutation  to 
which  they  are  open  while  holding  to  that  theistic  ground, 
and  teaching  an  absolute  religion  forever  in  a  state  of 
progressive  development.  If  called  pantheists,  they  will 
flatly  deny  the  charge ;  and  they  can  show  much  that  will 
seem,  to  the  view  of  the  undiscriminating,  to  make  good 
their  denial.  In  his  popular  discourse,  therefore,  let  the 
Christian  minister  grant  them  the  theism  to  which  they 
lay  claim.  Then,  besides  overturning  their  professed 
theory,  it  will  be  easy  to  show  that  their  thought  has  not 
yet  ultimated  itself;  that  they  are  not  established,  but 
drifting;  that  there  is  in  their  theism  a  tendency  towards 
pantheism,  —  unless  perchance  it  be  towards  positivism, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  they  are  empirical,  rather  than 
transcendental,  in  their  turn  of  mind.2 

Several  things  conspired  to  keep  Parker  from  pushing 
his  speculation  to  its  logical  ultimate.     He  was 

His  real  ten- 
dency held     a  sympathetic  student  of  all  the  modern  sys- 

in  cheek.  J 

terns  of  free  religious  thought ;  so  sympathetic 
as  to  show  the   influence   upon    him  of  the  last   author 

1  Experience  as  a  Minister,  pp.  20,  27. 

2  The  Rev.  O.  B.  Frothingham,  of  New  York,  speaking  of  the  impression 
made  on  himself  and  others  by  Mr.  Parker's  preaching,  said,  "  We  were  forced 
to  man  the  life- boat,  to  save  ourselves  from  the  floods  of  pantheism."  —  Lec- 
ture before  the  Parker  Fraternity  (Boston). 


PANTHEISM.  357 

he  had  read.  His  settled  and  vehement  hostility  to 
everything  evangelical  threw  him  unresistingly  into  the 
arms  of  the  opposite  class  of  writers.  Thus  he  was  em- 
barrassed by  the  amount  and  variety  of  his  learning ;  not 
mastering  his  materials,  so  much  as  seeming;  to 

Character 

be  mastered  by  them;  neither  an  independent  of  his  schol- 
arship, 
thinker,  who  knew  just  what  he  believed,  and 

could  clearly  state  and  consistently  defend  it,  nor  a  sturdy 
adherent  of  some  other  master;  a  multifarious  rather 
than  accurate  student,  having  partial  knowledge  of  many 
systems,  but  knowing  no  one  thoroughly ;  and  loving  all 
authors  who  strengthened  him  in  his  fight  with  ortho- 
doxy, so  that  he  did  not  care  to  discover  how  widely  they 
differed  from  himself  and  each  other. 

Parker  claimed  to  be  a  consistent  Unitarian  to  the  end 
of  his  life.  But  to  make  good  this  claim  he  did 
not  plant  himself  on  any  doctrinal  belief  of  Uni-  ^  uSta? 
tarianism,  so  much  as  on  its  postulate  of  the 
supremacy  of  reason  in  the  search  for  religious  truth.  Ac- 
cepting this  postulate  in  the  absolute  sense  in  which  it  is 
held  by  the  advocates  of  Free  Religion,  —  in  other  words, 
finding  the  only  source  of  religious  truth  in  the  soul  of  each 
man,  —  he  found  himself  forced  to  disown  the  authority  of 
the  Bible  altogether,  as  well  as  the  right  of  Jesus  to  be 
called  Master  and  Lord.  For  this  heresy,  the  "  new  prot- 
estantism "  of  the  free  religionists,  he  was  cast  out  of  the 
Unitarian  body ;  and  he  claimed  that  the  Unitarians,  in 
excommunicating  him,  had  stultified  themselves.  *A.t  any 
rate,  whether  or  not  he  had  misstated  their  cardinal  prin- 
ciple, the  cry  of  persecution  arose;  and  a  number  of  per- 
sons in  Boston,  professing  a  desire  to  see  "fair  play," 


358  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

secured  for  him  an  opportunity  to  be  heard.  Besides  this 
nucleus,  composed  chiefly  of  Unitarians,  others  soon  began 
to  flock  around  him  ; — attracted  by  his  zeal  in  the  reforms 
of  the  day,  for  devotion  to  which  they  were  suffering  much 
discomfort  in  the  older  churches  and  conservative  circles 
throughout  the  country.  The  influence  of  this  audience 
upon  the  preacher  was  probably  quite  as  great  as  his  in- 
fluence upon  them.  Multitudes  of  them  clung 

Some  of  his 

strongest       to  their  evangelical  faith,  and  heard  approvingly 

supporters 

disowned  his  only  his  reformatory  views.1  He  knew  the  set- 
theology. 

tied  reverence  of  the  New  England  mind  for 

the  Scriptures  and  for  Christ ;  and  it  was  only  from  the 
vantage-ground  of  his  position  as  a  reformer,  that  he  could 
succeed  at  all  in  his  efforts  to  undermine  or  shake  it.  I 
cannot  resist  the  feeling  that  there  was  a  strong  Christian 
sentiment  in  the  friends  he  most  loved,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  instincts  of  his  own  heart,  which  was  a  constant  check 
to  his  speculative  tendency.  He  was  too  dearly  attached 
to  those  who  had  rallied  to  his  support  in  the  hour  of 
need,  to  press  forward  in  a  course  of  thinking  which,  ex- 
cept as  veiled  from  their  comprehension,  must  have  done 
violence  to  their  long-cherished  convictions.  The  time  for 
earnestly  undertaking  such  a  work  as  this>  for  devoting 
himself  to  it  with  any  hope  of  success,  he  did  not  live  to 
see.  It  was  easy  enough  for  him  to  lash  the  Unitarians 
for  their  inconsistency,  as  he  believed,  in  opposing  him ;  to 
lash  the  Orthodox  for  their  treachery  to  the  spirit  of 
the  N^v  Testament,  in  upholding  slavery  and  kindred 
wrongs ;  and  it  was  -his  merciless  doing  of  this,  not  his 

1  "  Mine  is  the  old  faith  of  New  England.  On  those  points  he  and  I  rarely 
talked."  —  Address  of  Wendell  Phillips,  at  the  funeral  services  for  Theodore 
Parker  in  Boston. 


PANTHEISM.  359 

theological  notions,  but  this  in  spite  of  them,  which  made 
him  in  some  respects  a  leader  and  guide  to  other  minds. 

It  is  an  instructive  fact,  that  the  fullest  and  clearest 
statements  we  have  of  his  speculative  views  are  contained 
in  a  volume  mainly  written  before  he  was  much 

The  early 

known   to   the   public.      Had    the   germs    con-   rtatwnents 

of  Ins  views 

tained  in  that  volume  been  allowed  to  unfold   most  de- 
cided. 

and  mature,  he  could  have  hardly  failed,  even 
during  his  not  very  long  ministry,  to  come  out  distinctly 
and  avowedly  on  pantheistic  ground.  But  his  speculative 
tendency,  for  such  reasons  as  those  just  named,  seems  to 
have  been  checked.  His  theological  bias  was  held  in  sus- 
pense. Devotion  to  reforms,  and  regard  for  the  feelings 
of  those  who  stood  by  him  in  adversity,  blocked  the 
wheels  of  his  logic,  so  that  he  never  clearly  and  openly 
reached  the  goal  at  which  alone  he  could  legitimately 
stop.  It  is  significant,  as  showing  that  I  do  not  misjudge 
him,  that  the  pantheistic  leaning  is  more  apparent  in  the 
early  treatise  to  which  I  have  alluded,  the  Discourse  of 
Religion,  than  in  later  works.  It  was  after  he  had  been 
laboring  for  years  with  the  earnest  New  England  re- 
formers, that  he  preached  his  Sermons  of  Theism,  —  in 
which  the  name  Theism  is  given  to  his  system,  and  the 
attempt  made  to  distinguish  between  himself  and  panthe- 
ists, atheists,  and  deists.  To  what  shifts  of  false 
statement  and  definition  that  attempt  led,  at 
least  in  the  case  of  pantheism,  we  have  already 
seen.  It  is  a  fact,  of  which  he  was  aware  all 
through  his  ministry,  that  his  preaching  was  more  liked 
the  nearer  it  came  to  evangelical  ground.  However  im- 
portant his  peculiar  views  seemed  to  himself,  he  could  not 


360  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

preach  them,  save  negatively  and  indirectly,  with  any  hope 
of  persuading  the  mass  of  his  more  intelligent  hearers. 
Hence  those  views  remained  in  the  undeveloped  form  of 
the  early  treatise,  to  find  lodgment  here  and  there  in  a  few 
scholarly  but  ill-balanced  minds,  who,  now  that  he  is  no 
more,  seem  to  be  completing  in  themselves  the  process 
which  was  begun  in  him;  —  trying,  that  is,  to  hold  by  a 
position  which  is  not  a  position,  but  a  tendency  ;  and  fall- 
ing away  one  after  another  into  pantheism  or  positivism, 
according  to  the  original  bias  of  their  thinking,  where  they 
have  not  fortunately  received  divine  strength  to  flee  back- 
ward, and  regain  the  only  sure  foundation,  which  is  laid  in 
Jesus  Christ. 

Weightily  true,  and  nobly  solemn  in  counsel  to  us  all, 
are  the  words  of  Tholuck,  spoken  in  view  of.the  fate  of  all 
human  thinking  which  is  divorced  from  faith  in  the  Son  of 
God :  "  Philosophy  can  never  remain  stationary.  Aristotle 
expressed  the  hope,  as  Cicero  says  in  the  Tusculan  Ques- 
tions, that  philosophy  would  be  perfected  in  a  short  time. 
Kant  also,  in  modern  times,  has  said,  'My  philosophy  will 
bring  eternal  peace  to  the  world.'  And  vet  the 

The  fate  of     ,  rt 

philosophy     progress  of  philosophy  is  onward,  ever  onward, 

when  be- 

refX^f-faith     without   delay.     The   truths   which    are   recog- 

m  Christ.  J 

nized  by  one  system  are  discarded  by  another. 
From  this  mutability  of  philosophical  dogmas,  however,  is 
the  truly  Christian  theology  exempt.  This  teaches  us  to 
rely  on  one  single  MAN,  who  has  l.iid  claim  to  infallibility. 
So  soon  as  we  acknowledge  that  the  absolute  truth  is  re- 
vealed by  Jesus,  then  have  we  such  a  ground  of  confidence 
as  can  never  be  shaken."  l  In  all  his  efforts  to  raise  up 

i  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  Vol.  I.,  p.  207. 


PANTHEISM.  361 

the  fallen,  and  promote  justice  between  man  and  man, 
Parker  could  draw  no  inspiration  from  his  peculiar  system 
of  religious  thought.  As  his  arm  is  lifted  higher  to  smite 
down  great  iniquities,  and  sympathy  for  the  wretched 
breathes  more  tenderly  through  his  words,  he  draws  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  burden  of  the  teachings  of  Christ.  Eigh- 
teen hundred  years  of  human  speculation  have 
made  no  difference.  All  that  is  best,  even  in  ofAges!* 
the  utterances  of  this  denier  of  Christ's  lordship, 
is  an  unconscious  testimony  to  the  wisdom  of  the  fisher- 
man,—  who,  when  others  were  forsaking  his  Master,  ex- 
claimed only  the  more  ardently,  and  with  an  overflowing 
faith,  "  Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words 
of  eternal  life." 


LECTURE    IX. 

THE  STRENGTH  AND  WEAKNESS  OP  PANTHEISM. 

I  HAVE  now  gone  over  the  ground  especially  marked 
out  in  this  course  of  lectures.  The  point  taken  at  the 
beginning  of  the  discussion,  and  briefly  explained  and 
defended,  was  that  all  systems  of  religious  error  have 
their  genesis  in  the  estrangement  of  men  from  God ;  and 

that  from  this  original  source  two  main  streams 
tk>n?pitula  °f  speculation  have  flowed  forth,  owing  to  those 

opposite  mental  tendencies,  either  transcenden- 
tal or  empirical,  which  characterize  all  thinkers.1  It  is  the 
errors  of  religious  thought  in  which  the  first  of  these  two 
tendencies  may  be  chiefly  traced,  that  I  have  thus  far  con- 
sidered. The  subject,  therefore,  to  which  my  inquiries 
have  been  limited,  was  the  source  and  development  of 
pantheism ;  since  it  is  in  pantheism,  as  I  endeavored  to 
show,  that  all  a-priori  thinking  which  is  not  kept  by  Chris- 
tian faith  must  find  its  legitimate  stopping-place.  An 
examination  of  ancient  authors  made  it  appear  that  pan- 
theism, at  least  in  its  clearly  defined  and  more  dogmatic 
forms,  is  of  comparatively  modern  growth.  Historical 
facts  were  adduced,  which  tended  to  show  that  man  did 
not  ascend  first  from  fetichism  to  pantheism,  but  sank  to  it 

1  Introduction. 

362 


PANTHEISM.  363 

from  pure  monotheism,  after  he  had  forsaken  God.1  For 
obvious  reasons,  Benedict  Spinoza  was  selected  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  this  system.  He  had  been  a  pupil  of  Des- 
cartes at  the  outset;  but  it  was  only  the  philosophical 
method,  not  the  Christian  faith,  of  his  master  that  he 
accepted.  I  undertook  to  show,  so  far  as  required  by  my 
more  immediate  purpose,  what  the  leading  doctrine  of 
Spinoza  was ;  as  also  how  that  doctrine  might  be  legit- 
imately reached  from  the  premises  of  Descartes.2  The 
development  of  pantheism  in  philosophy  was  then  briefly 
sketched,  especially  in  the  school  of  German  transcenden- 
talism, beginning  with  Kant  and  ending  with  Hegel.3  In 
immediate  connection  with  this,  the  Tubingen  school  of 
criticism,  as  represented  by  Strauss  and  Baur,  was  exam- 
ined with  a  view  to  make  clear  its  pantheistic  spirit.4 
Thus  the  way  was  open  for  what  seemed  to  me  to  enter 
more  directly  into  my  main  undertaking ;  namely,  a  sur- 
vey of  the  development  of  pantheism  in  literature,  —  espe- 
cially in  the  widely-read  works  of  Goethe,  Carlyle,  Em- 
erson, and  Theodore  Parker.5  It  is  in  the  treatment  of 
these  popular  authors,  whose  influence  Christianity  more 
manifestly  meets  in  its  progress,  that  I  have  aimed  to  be 
thorough,  and  at  the  same  time  accurate  and  candid.  I 
have  allowed  them  to  state  their  own  views,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, adding  my  personal  comments  mainly  to  elucidate 
the  current  of  their  thinking. 

It  would  be  easy  to  extend  this  list  of  names  in  the 
domain  of  letters ;  though  no  others  have  occurred  to  me 
as  deserving  to  be  classed  with  leaders  in  pantheistic 

1  Lecture  I.  2  Lecture  II.  s  Lecture  III. 

4  Lecture  IV.  e  Lectures  V..  VI.,  VII.,  VIII. 


364  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

doctrine.  Very  likely  something  might  be  gath- 
e^cVuded  ere(l  from  almost  every  great  author,  which,  by 
survey"8  itself  alone,  seems  to  be  in  sympathy  with  pan- 
theism. But  each  writer,  I  hold,  is  to  be  judged 
by  his  main  spirit  and  tendencies,  together  with  his  open 
attitude  towards  Christianity,  rather  than,  by  the  utter- 
ances he  makes  here  and  there  when  his  feelings  and 
imagination  happen  to  be  strongly  excited.  I  do  not 
think  it  at  all  necessary  to  the  completeness  of  my  under- 
taking, to  trace  the  particulars  in  which  the  writings  of 
Swedenborg  seem  to  reproduce  those  of  Spinoza:  Pan- 
theism may  be  the  logical  ultimate  of  his  doctrines,  and 
of  the  church  founded  on  them,  as  one  ingenious  critic 
has  tried  to  prove;1  but  I  am  content  to  leave  that  ques- 
tion untouched,  having  laid  down  the  tests  by  which 
every  student  of  Swedenborg  may  decide  it  for  himself. 
I  have  already  quoted  lines  from  Pope  which  are  panthe- 
istic in  sentiment,  and  might  have  added  others  of  similar 
import  from  the  same  author.  But  just  how  much  weight 
should  be  given  to  these,  as  decisive  of  Pope's  speculative 
views  in  religion,  is  uncertain;  for  he  has  written  mucli, 
the  sentiment  of  which  is  opposite  to  this;  nor  does  it 
appear  that  he  ever  declared  himself  the  foe  of  Christian 
theism.  Willis,  in  his  Life,  Correspondence,  and  Ethics 
of  Spinoza,  adopts  the  conclusion  already  referred  to,  that 
Swedenborg  was  a  Spinozist;  but  he  also  puts  many  oth- 
ers into  the  same  category,  by  what  seems  to  me  a  very 
unfair  method  of  criticism.  Even  the  writers  of  the 

i  This  critic  is  the  late  General  Hitchcock,  of  the  United  States  army,  who, 
in  1846,  published  a  work  entitled  "  The  Doctrines  of  Spinoza  and  Swedeuborg 
identified,  in  so  fas-  as  they  ciairn  a  Scientific  Ground." 


PANTHEISM.  365 

Bible  do  not  escape  his  classification;  and  authors  so 
wholly  unlike  as-  the  poet  Tennyson  and  the  naturalist 
Darwin  are  named  among  pantheists.  To  Wordsworth 
a  prominent  place  is  assigned.  Undoubtedly  this  poet,  in 
common  with  many  others  not  pantheistic,  has  written 
passages  which,  taken  by  themselves,  have  a  savor  of 
Spinozism.  There  are  lines  in  the  Ode  on  Immortality 
which  carry  the  doctrine  of  Plato  to  the  very  verge  of 
pantheism.  Also,  in  the  Ode  on  Tintem  Abbey,  Words- 
worth speaks  of 

"  A  presence  that  disturbs  us  with  a  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts,  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  interfused 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  fills  the  mind  of  man  — 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  tilings,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

But  these  lines  must  be  explained  by  others,  and  by  the 
well-known  religious  views  of  the  author.  Wordsworth 
never  professed  any  creed  which  would  warrant  us  in 
giving  his  poetry  a  pantheistic  construction;  he  never 
assumed  an  attitude  of  hostility  or  attack  towards  the 
Christian  religion.  But  far  more  surprising  than  Willis 
is  an  English  clergyman,  —  Hunt  by  name,  —  whose 
work  has  just  fallen  under  my  notice.1  This  critic,  in  an 
extended  treatise  on  the  general  subject,  finds  pantheism 
not  only  in  the  writers  now  named,  but  in  Augustine, 

1  An  Essay  on  Pantheism,  by  Kev.  John   Hunt.    8vo.    pp.  382    (London, 
I860). 


366          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

Anselm,  Leibnitz,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  Hansel.  Wes- 
ley, and  Cowper,  and  Bryant,  as  truly  -as  Goethe  and 
Shelley,  are  to  him  poets  of  pantheism.  He  finds  the  doc- 
trine of  Spinoza  in  Milton  and  Toplady  no  less  than  in 
Emerson.  Frederick  Robertson,  as  judged  by  him,  is  a 
pantheist  of  the  same  class  as  Theodore  Parker.  But 
such  criticism  cannot  be  allowed.  It  is  wholesale  and 
indiscriminate.  We  are  left  to  infer  from  it  that  pan- 
theism is  a  wholly  innocent  thing,  into  which  even  Chris- 
tian writers  must  be  expected  to  fall  at  times.  There  is, 
as  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  successfully  shown,  a  vast 
difference  between  most  of  these  writers  and  those  whom 
I  have  classified  as  pantheists.  Undoubtedly  I  have  not 
named  all;  but  it  will  be  found,  I  think,  that  those  not 
named  are  either  disciples  of  one  or  the  other  of  those  I 
have  examined,  or  indeterminate  in  their  views,  so  as  to 
preclude  all  claim  to  any  separate  or  special  treatment. 
If  there  are  around  us  free-thinkers,  and  propagandists  of 
free  religion,  even  they  are  substantially  answered  in  the 
reply  to  Emerson  and  Parker.  Either  this,  or  they  do 
not  fall  within  the  limits  of  a  treatise  on  a-priori  thinking, 
but  belong  to  the  school  of  empirical  thought,  and  must 
be  reserved  for  treatment  under  the  general  head  of  Pos- 
itivism. 

It  was  stated,  in  the  Introduction,  that  some- 

Rpfntation 

of  panthe-  thiii^  in  the  way  of  refutation  mio-ht  be  ex- 
ism. 

pected  at  the  close  of  this  survey  of  pantheism. 
To  that  concluding »work  we  have  now  come;  and  I  pre- 
fer to  entitle  it  a  statement  both  of  the  strength  and  the 
weakness  of  pantheism,  rather  than  a  precise  refutation. 
I  do  this  for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  I  have 


PANTHEISM.  367 

sought  to  make  the  refutation  go  along  side  by 
side  with  the  exposition  of  the  doctrine.  The 
overthrow  of  this,  and  of  all  forms  of  religious 
error,  as  was  maintained  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
Introduction,  depends  more  on^  the  practical  fidelity  and 
broad  generosity  of  Christians,  than  on  any  arguments 
addressed  to  the  understanding.  Yet  such  arguments 
must  not  be  thrown  aside  as  valueless.  It  behooves  us  to 
overturn  pantheism  from  the  position  of  philosophy  ;  to 
show  that  the  clear  head  disowns  it,  as  truly  as  the  pure 
and  tender  heart.  This  work  I  have  tried  to  do,  in  some 
measure,  at  each  point  of  our  progress.  Nor  did  the 
doing  it  require  much  break  or  diversion  in  our  line  of 
treatment.  The  premise  on  which  pantheism  rests  is  so 
simple,  that  only  a  brief  hint,  or  turn  of  a  phrase  or  sen- 
tence, was  needed,  for  the  most  part,  to  guard  against  any 
plausible  aspect  of  the  doctrine  which  met  us  from  time 
to  time  in  the  course  of  our  inquiry.  It  is  at  the  risk  of 
repeating  myself  that  I  proceed  to  notice  some  of  those 
suggestions  more  distinctly.  Besides,  as  I  have  said  in 
the  course  of  the  investigation,  the  best  refuta- 

,  .  ,,  ,.    .  >ii 

tion  01  a  religious  error  is  the  clear  statement 


of  it.     Such  a  statement  of  pantheism  I  have   best  refuta- 

tion. 
endeavored  to  give,  —  recognizing  it  as  a  half 

trjith,  and  presenting  its  comely  features  together  with  the 
repulsive,  in  the  various  authors  passed  in  review.  The 
fact  that  it  is  not  unmixed  error  in  its  origin,  that  it  arises 
out  of  a  blending  of  the  false  with  the  true  in  philosophy, 
would  seem  to  require  that  something  should  be  said  for 
it,  however  adverse  the  final  decision  in  estimating  it 
thoroughly.  But  whether  I  speak  of  its  strength  or 


368          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

weakness,  I  shall  still  feel,  as  I  thus  far  have,  that  every 
mind  which  goes  along  with  me  will  see  its  utter  unten- 
ableness, — judging  it  in  the  light  of  those  necessary  and 
immutable  convictions  of  our  nature  which  never  fail  to 
pronounce  it  false  when  its  essential  meaning  is  brought 
clearly  to  view. 

In  the  second  place,  I  do  not  here  pretend  to 

Every  pan- 
theist has      any  exact  refutation  of  pantheism,  because  there 

something       .     * 

peculiar  to     is   something   in    almost   every  author  treated 

himself. 

.  which  might,  in  that  case,  seem  to  require  a 

special  reply.  The  gross  doctrine  which  Theodore  Parker 
calls  pantheism,  as  if  to  divert  attention  from  the  real 
thing,  is  too  unphilosophical  to  deserve  a  particular  answer. 
It  may  draw  an  odious  name  from  his  "theism,"  when 
offered  to  minds  which  do  not  discriminate ;  but  to  attack 
it  would  be  investing  it  with  a  dignity  it  cannot  claim. 
And  there  are  reasons  why  the  recognized  masters  of  pan- 
theism need  not  be  answered  separately.  Though  there 
is  something  distinctive  in  each  one  of  them  perhaps,  yet 
their  main  position  is  so  essentially  the  same, 
Seyagree.  tnat  wnflt  thoroughly  refutes  any  one  is  a  sub- 
stantial refutation  of  them  all.  In  one  form  or 
another  they  make  consciousness  the  organ  and*  the  cri- 
terion of  truth.  "I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  is  the  point 
from  which  Spinoza  sets  out,  but  which  he  seems  to  me  to 
abandon  quite  as  unwarrantably  as  Descartes.  Conscious- 
ness is  the  mind's  knowledge  of  what  it  does  as  being  its 
own  acts.  It  is  therefore  always  a  particular  and  deter- 
mined knowledge,  never  universal  and  absolute.  Its 
sphere  is  psychology ;  nor  can  it,  by  any  possibility,  tran- 
scend this  limit  so  as  to  include  ontology.  It  has 


PANTHEISM. 

nothing   to   do   with   being   in  general,  but  is    Spinoza's 
always  shut  up  to  being  in  particular.     Hence  S reach*11" 
Spinoza,  to  be  consistent,  cannot  affirm  an  abso- 
lute reality,  of  which  he  is  the  fleeting  manifestation  ;  for 
on  his  own  premise,  and  by  his  own  method,  he  himself,  as 
known  in  consciousness,  is  the  only  reality. 

The  reasoning  of  Fichte  also  is  defective,  and  in  the 
same  way  as  that  of  Spinoza.  He  cannot  pass  from  the 
finite  ego  to  the  Infinite  Ego  in  consciousness.  That  step 
must  be  taken  by  an  inference,  or  through  a  conduction 
which  carries  one  beyond  the  province  to  which  conscious- 
ness is  shut  up.  In  like  manner,  Emerson  may 

J       Same  fault 

say  that  his  soul  is  a  conditioned  image  of  the    in  the  rea- 
soning- of 
unconditioned  over-soul,  but  he  abandons  the  so-     Fichte  and 

Emerson. 

called  philosophy  of  consciousness  in  thus  affirm- 
ing. He  utters  an  ontological  doctrine,  to  which  his  con- 
sciousness can  never  attain.  And  he  certainly  is  one  of  the 
most  consistent  of  pantheists  when  he  intrenches  himself 
within  the  sphere  of  psychology,  declaring  that  he  is  God  and 
nature,  and  that  he  knows  no  reality  save  the  subjective  self. 
Some  of  the  later  pantheists,  as  if  hoping  to  escape  this 
fatal  defect  in  their  reasoning,  have  given  a  new  definition 
of  consciousness.1  They  arbitrarily  enlarge  its  function ; 
say  that  it  is  not  limited  to  subjective  knowledge,  but  in- 
cludes that  which  is  objective  and  infinite.  They  define  it 
as  a  knowing  not  only  with  one's  self,  but  with  the  univer- 
sal whole.  Is  there,  however,  anything  in  human  experi- 
ence answering  to  such  a  definition?  Mani-  Futlction  of 
festly  it  is  not  real,  but  only  verbal.  An  objec- 
tive  consciousness  is  an  absurdity.  It  does  not  taken* 

See  North  American  Review,  Article  "  Hegel  »  (April,  1868). 

24 


370          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

even  seem  to  lay  a  path  out  from  the  conditioned  to 
the  unconditioned.  It  is  a  phrase  without  a  meaning,  for 
there  is  no  corresponding  fact  in  our  experience.  What 
these  pantheists  call  "  consciousness "  is  more  properly 
suggestion.  Spinoza's  finite  thinking  suggests  an  infinite 
thinking.  Fichte's  particular  ego  suggests  a  universal 
ego.  Emerson's  my-self  suggests  an  other-self.  Hegel's 
being  suggests  its  opposite,  which  is  non-being.  But  these 
contraries  are  not  united  in  the  human  consciousness. 
There  Js  another  and  more  royal  faculty  of  the  human 
mind,  which  holds  them  together.  As  soon  as  we  duly 
examine  this  nobler  power,  we  find  that  it  renders  panthe- 
ism forever  impossible.  The  proper  office  of  this  power  is 
to  furnish  us  with  our  primary  beliefs,  —  with  those  con- 
victions respecting  ourselves  and  the  world, 

Differs  from 

the  faculty      which  are  universal  and  necessary.     It  is  prop- 

of  intuition. 

erly  named  the  intuitional  faculty.  This  faculty 
it  is,  however  designated,  which  gives  us  a  sure  passage 
out  into  the  ontological  world.  We  may,  thoughtlessly  or 
for  the  sake  of  convenience,  call  it  consciousness ;  but  it  is 
not  such  a  power  as  to  imply,  in  its  workings,  that  we  are 
part  and  parcel  of  all  which  we  know.  It  leaves  us  eter- 
nally distinct  from  the  external  universe  with  which  it 
acquaints  us.  We  can  never  grant  to  the  pantheist  that 
he  has  found  the  absolute,  the  unconditioned,  in  his  own 
consciousness.  It  is  in  the  exercise  of  this  other,  our 
noblest  and  divinest  faculty,  —  by  the  intuition  of  objective 
and  necessary  truths,  —  that  we  leap  "the  flaming  walls  of 
the  world,"  and  stand  face  to  face  with  the  Father  of  our 
spirits.  The  only  consistent  form  of  pantheism  is  that 
idealism  by  which  a  man  denies  all  reality  save  the  thought- 


PANTHEISM.  371 

process  of  which  he  is  conscious.  It  is  not  objective,  but 
purely  subjective.  It  is  not  absolute,  but  forever  cast  in 
the  mould  of  his  particular  being. 

We  are  obliged,  therefore,  at  the  very  outset, 
to   grant   the   pantheist   a   position   he   cannot 
legitimately  reach,  in  order  to  consider  some  of 
the  more  general  arguments  on  which  he  relies. 
We  will  allow  that  he  has  planted  his  foot  in  the  world  of 
unconditioned   thought,  not   forcing   him   to  explain  the 
process  by  which  he  reached  that  position.     Having  con- 
ceded this  much,  the  way  is  open  for  us  to  look  at  the 
arguments  with  which  he  seeks  to  fortify  himself,  that  we 
may  know  what  weight  or  want  of  weight  there  is  in 
them. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  pantheism  follows 
from  the  truth,  admitted  by  all  theists,  that  God 
is  an  infinite%eing.  This  is  the  point  at  which 
Parker  especially  stumbles.  He  fears  to  clothe 
God  with  personality,  lest  God  should  thereby  be  unclothed 
of  his  infinity.  To  make  him  personal  —  so  runs  the  argu- 
ment—  is  to  make  him  finite.  He  must  be  impersonal  in 
order  to  be  infinite.  Personality  involves  limitation  ;  but 
God  is  unlimited ;  therefore  God  is  impersonal.  This 
sounds  quite  conclusive  ;  is,  in  form  at  least,  unanswerable. 
But  let  us  look  at  it.  Has  the  major  premise  been  proved  ? 
What  human  intellect  has  discovered  that  personality, 
always  and  necessarily,  involves  limitation  ?  Let  us  see 
the  proof  that  there  is  a  whit  more  difficulty  in  the  idea  of 
an  infinite,  than  of  a  finite  person.  No  such  evidence  can 
be  found.  The  syllogism  is  therefore  baseless,  and  the 


372  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

whole  argument  sinks  into  a  fallacious  assertion.  Person- 
ality is  properly  but  another  name  for  determinatem-ss  ; 
and  as  the  amount  of  being  is  greater  in  any  case,  the 
demand  for  this  is  not  less,  but  more.  "  In  reality  there  is 
no  contradiction,"  says  Julius  Miiller,  "  between  detcrmi- 
nateness  and  infinity.  Infinity  not  only  implies  determi-' 
nateness,  but  positively  requires  it ;  it  demands  a  fulness  of 
determinations  in  no  way  limited  from  without  by  any 
other  being,  nor  from  within  by  one  another."  l  But  by 

what  right  do  pantheists  say  that  God  must  be 
menVa^11  impersonal  because  he  is  infinite  ?  They  deny 
fhc1panthe*t  a^  personality.  Man,  to  their  view,  is  essen- 
Scd."8  de  tially  impersonal ;  a  person  only  a  personification. 

Upon  this  theory  simple  reality,  quite  as  neces- 
sarily as  infinity,  excludes  personality.  Persons  are  the 
images  of  our  own  dream.  We  flatter  ourselves  with  the 
illusion  of  personality,  in  this  phenomenal  and  unreal  life ; 
but  we  shall  awake  from  this  fantasy  at  length,  —  shall  be 
absorbed  back,  that  is,  into  the  impersonal  substance,  whose 
bright  shadows  we  are.  Turning  from  this  argument, 
which  so  remarkably  defeats  itself,  we  say  that  the  seat  of 
personality  is  in  the  will.  It  is  not  bound  up  with  the  idea 

of  a  given  amount  of  being,  whether  less  or 
of1pe°rson1-ce  more ;  but  is  essential  to  the  idea  of  freedom, 
with18  '  liberty,  independent  choice.  There  can  be  no 

personality  in  the  material  world  ;  for  that  is 
without  the  determining  power,  it  is  the  realm  of  fate. 
According  to  the  pantheist  there  cannot  be  personality 
anywhere,  for  he  lifts  the  iron  sceptre  of  necessity  over  all 
things.  But  we  know  that  we  are  free.  Nothing  can 

i  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  Book  III.,  Pt.  I.,  Chap.  IV. 


PANTHEISM.  373 

uproot  this  conviction,  or  stand  against  it.  In  the  free- 
dom thus  vouched  for  is  the  citadel  of  our  personality,  of 
all  personality.  To  affirm  that  God  is  impersonal,  is  there- 
fore to  degrade  him  below  man;  is  to  teach  that  he  can 
never  have  the  sublime  sense  of  liberty  which  we  all  have; 
is  to  affirm  that  he  must  come  out  of  the  sphere  of  the  in- 
finite, and  be  as  one  of  his  finite  creatures,  in  order  to  feel 
that  he  has  the  power  of  doing  as  he  will.  It  is  not  the 
personality  of  God,  but  of  man,  that  is  imperfect.  Our 
will  is  overborne  by  temptation.  It  is  weak,  owing  to  the 
finiteness  of  the  circle  of  being  in  which  it  acts. 
But  God's  being  is  not  limited.  Its  centre  is  only  perfect 
everywhere,  its  circumference  nowhere.  Hence  p 
he  is  immeasurably  above  us,  in  all  that  goes  to  consti- 
tute him  a  person.  He  is  infinite  in  his  being,  and  there- 
fore as  a  person  he  is  absolutely  perfect. 

Another  argument,  equally  high-sounding  and    equally 
hollow,  is  founded  on  the  ambiguous  postulate 
that  the  mind  cannot  act  excepting  where  it  is. 


Hence  it  is  inferred,  by  the  pantheist,  that  all   ^nly  where 
truth  lies  within  the  compass  of  the  mind  ;  and 
that  we  can  have  knowledge  of  nature,  or  of  any  other  ob- 
jective thing,  only  as  our  minds,  in  the  last  analysis,  are 
identical  with  it.     In  all  our  acquisitions  of  truth  we  are 
mistaken,  if  we  suppose  that  our  researches  pertain  to  ex- 
ternal facts  ;  for  that  which  we  regard  as  outward  is  only 
a  shadow  of  the   inward,  while,  spider-like,  we   spin   our 
theories  of  God  and  the  world  out  of  our  own 
dream.     But  in  reply  to  this  argument  we  have 
only  to  bring  those  principles   of  the  common- 
sense  philosophy,  so  clearly  enunciated  by  Reid 


374          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

and  Hamilton,  and  to  which  I  have  already  referred  as 
there  was  occasion.  It  is  a  fundamental  belief  with  us  — 
a  persuasion  beforehand,  which  we  bring  with  us  to  every 
problem  in  science  —  that  we  are  independent  entities, 
separate  from  nature  ;  and  that  it  is  not  through  con- 
sciousness as  an  organ  of  discovery,  but  by  immediate 
cognitions,  that  we  get  onr  knowledge  of  the  external 
world.  These  cognitions  are  inexplicable,  yet  are  they 
irresistible;  and  we  find  ourselves  always  naturally  be- 
lieving what  they  declare.  Now  we  must  insist 
that  this  fundamental  belief  in  the  separate  ex- 


must  insist        .  1   •        .L     1  •  I    .,1  1  • 

on  these  be-  istence  of  the  subject  knowing  and  the  object 
known  is  true,  until  the  pantheist  proves  it  to 
be  false;  for  if  it  .be  shown  that  this  our  necessary  con- 
viction is  deceptive,  then  no  one  of  our  faculties  is  any 
longer  trustworthy,  and  all  knowledge  of  truth,  even  that 
of  which  the  pantheist  makes  his  boast,  is  forever  at  an 
end.  There  is  no  point  short  of  absolute  scepticism,  wild, 
dark,  terrible  beyond  all  we  can  imagine,  at  which  logi- 
cally to  stop,  the  moment  we  swing  loose  from  our  faith 
that  the  mind  may  hold  converse  with  objects  outside  of 
itself.  If  we  know  anything,  we  know  that  the  human 
spirit  is  a  royal  child.  It  can  act  upon  realities  external 
to  itself.  Consciousness  is  no  prison,  in  which  that  spirit 
must  remain  shut  away  from  the  knowledge  of  objective 
truth.  The  everlasting  doors  of  consciousness  are  lifted 
up,  and  through  them  the  soul  is*  constantly  looking  forth 
on  a  universe  without,  sure  that  what  it  sees  is  not  "  the 
vision  of  its  dream,"  but  a  revelation  of  God's  glory  in  the 
works  of  his  hand,  which  it  may  evermore  study,  and  ad- 
mire, and  subdue  to  its  royal  control. 


PANTHEISM.  375 

One  great  service  which  mental  science  owes  to  Chris- 
tianity is  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  funda- 
mental beliefs  of  the  soul.  They  are  the  armory 
to  which  we  never  go  in  vain  for  weapons  ;  c 
weapons  mighty  to  the  pulling  down  of  the  truths?™1 
strongholds  of  pantheism  ;  of  that  pantheism 
which  would  draw  all  reality  into  the  maelstrom  of  con- 
sciousness, and  give  us  its  own  thought-process,  at  last,  as 
the  only  universe  and  the  only  God.  These  necessary 
convictions  cannot  be  too  much  studied  in  the  colleges 
and  all  other  schools  where  youthful  intellect  is  trained  ; 
for  they  are  the  golden  links  in  a  chain  which  is  the  only 
chain  that  binds  the  conditioned  world  to  the  uncondi- 
tioned. They  are  the  pontoons  which  the  advancing  soul 
throws  out  over  the  swollen  streams  of  scepticism,  making 
for  itself  a  way  into  the  regions  of  absolute  truth,  along 
which  ft  moves  with  assured  step,  conquering  and  to  con- 
quer. God  is  in  heaven,  and  "we  on  the  earth.  Yet  the 
Father  may  commune  with  his  children  while  we  behold 
these  angels,  faithful  messengers  between  the  two  worlds, 
ascending  and  descending  along  the  ladder  let  down  for 
them. 

Pantheists  urge,  as  one   of  the  strong  arguments  for 
their  doctrine,  its  capabilities   as  a  system  of 
philosophy.      It   deduces  all  reality   from    con- 


sciousness,  on  mathematical  principles.  This  h 
is  thought  to  be  eminently  satisfactory  to  the  philosophi- 
cal thinker.  All  things  —  mind,  matter,  church,  state,  so- 
ciety, the  Bible,  the  Koran,  Jesus,  Confucius,  Zoroaster  — 
are  analyzed  back  into  an  eternal  nature-process.  In  this 
solution,  we  are  told,  is  comprehensiveness;  everything 


376          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

covered  by  a  single  formula;  perfect  unity,  and  perfect 
demonstration.  But  we  say,  in  reply  to  this  boasted 
strength,  that  it  is  a  glaring  and  fatal  weakness.  The 
claim  of  comprehensiveness  cannot  be  made  good;  is  just 
the  opposite  of  the  actual  state  of  the  case.  So  far  from 
being  all-inclusive,  pantheism  is  a  system  of  exclusion.  It 

begins  with  leaving  out  some  of  the  most  im- 
caimot  b™  portant  data  of  a  perfect  philosophy.  There 

are  within  us  certain  convictions,  which  are 
as  inevitable  as  consciousness,  though  not  in  their  origin 
a  part  of  it.  We  have,  for  instance,  an  unconquerable 
faith  in.  the  freedom  of  our  will ;  in  the  power,  whatever 
choice  we  make  at  any  time,  to  make  either  that  or  some 
other  choice.  This  persuasion  is  as  truly  a  certainty  to  us, 
as  the  thinking  of  which  we  are  conscious.  But  the  pan- 
theist has  no  place  for  this,  intuition  in  his  system.  He 
excludes  it.  His  fatalism  represents  it  as  purely  a  chi- 
mera. Not  only  does  pantheism  deny  the  possibility  of 
this  freedom;  it  rejects  other  intuitions  of  the  reason, 
which  are  bound  up  with  the  action  of  all  our  mental  fac- 
ulties. Men  know  that  they  commit  sin,  and  they  feel 
guilty  for  it.  But  on  the  theory  of  the  pantheist  that  feel- 
ing of  guilt  is  an  illusion,  for  the  sin  itself  is  impossible. 
We  are  as  thoroughly  persuaded,  also,  of  the  distinctions 
of  right  and  wrong  as  that  we  think.  Yet  pantheism, 

by  resolving  all  things  into  a  chain  of  neces- 
truths  '"  sity,  makes  these  distinctions  impossible.  Our 
theism  ex-  thoughts  are  compelled  either  to  accuse  or  else 

eludes.  . 

excuse  one  another.  How,  then,  can  we  accept, 
as  at  all  adequate  to  the  facts  of  our  nature,  a  philosophy 
which  denies  that  there  is  anything  praiseworthy  or 


PANTHEISM.  377 

blameworthy  in  human  conduct?  Its  optimism  is  flatly 
contradicted  by  a  voice  in  our  conscience  which  we  cannot 
disown.  If  consciousness  be  all-inclusive,  and  its  contents 
are  evolved  under  fixed  laws  of  fate,  it  is  absurd  to  speak 
of  gratitude,  blame,  remorse,  the  approval  or  disapproval 
of  one's  own  or  another's  life.  For  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  good  or  ill  desert.  Nothing  can  be  otherwise 
than  it  is;  and  we  should  take  everything  as  it  comes, 
thanking  no  one  and  condemning  no  one.  But  pantheism 
is  not  founded  on  anything  as  inevitable  as  these  same 
feelings  of  gratitude,  remorse,  censure,  praise.  They  are 
true  if  anything  is  true.  And  yet  the  temple  which  the 
pantheist  builds  allows  them  no  entrance  within  its  doors. 
The  alleged  capacity  of  the  system  for  including  and  uni- 
fying all  truth,  is  therefore  a  hollow  pretence.  Its  founda- 
tion is  not  broad  enough  for  the  facts  of  the  soul.  It 
leaves  out,  and  makes  war  upon,  one  whole  department  of 
the  soul's  activities  ;  namely,  the  moral  and  religious.  It 
allows  room  for  the  thinking  faculty  alone;  affirms  that 
all  truth  lies  within  the  conscious  action  of  this  single 
power;  and  on  so  narrow,  so  insufficient  a  basis,  it  at- 
tempts to  construct  a  philosophy  of  the  universe  and  of 
God. 

And   this   favoritism,   it   should   also   be   re- 
marked, is  shown  for  an  inferior  department  of   ^vee,jc?rtej 
our  humanity.     The  city  which  John  saw  gave   faculty"01" 
no  entrance  to  the  unclean,  but  only  to  the  pure, 
within  its  pearly  gates ;  but  the  New  Jerusalem  of  the 
pantheist  reverses  this  action,  excluding  what  is  noblest, 
and  admitting  that  which  maketh  a  lie.     The  weeds  are 
cherished  in  his  paradise,  and  the  flowers  thrown  over  the 


378  HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

walls.  Our  highest  capacity,  that  in  which  the  most  im- 
portant of  all  truths  are  revealed  to  us,  is  the  ethical  and 
religious ;  the  capacity  in  virtue  of  which  we  have  to  do 
with  the  right,  with  God,  with  immortality.  This  su- 
preme power  of  the  soul  is  conscience,  the  seat  of  the 
moral  sentiments ;  and  it  should  ever  take  precedence  of 
mere  intellect.  Both  are  worthy  of  recognition. 

All  the  fac-      „,  ..  . 

uitiesof         I  he  true  philosophy  assigns  a  niche  to  each  one 

the  mind 

should  be       m  its  temple :  but  the  place  of  honor  belongs, 

recognized. 

evermore,  not  to  that  which  moves  only  within 
the  sphere  'of  natural  law,  but  to  that  which  spurns  the 
dominion  of  fate, —  which  bears  the  soul  upward  on  tire- 
less wing,  into  communion  with  the  holy,  the  uncaused, 
the  self-directed,  the  divine.  Conscience  and  the  under- 
standing should  not  be  put  asunder;  and  in  joining  them 

together,  conscience  should  be  assigned  to  the 
should  be  uppermost  seat.  Hers  is  of  right  the  throne 
f he  moral  and  the  sceptre.  The  faculty  which  aids  us 

chiefly  in  acquiring  unreligious  and  conditioned 
knowledge  must  not  command  her,  much  less  attempt  to 
usurp  her  kingdom.  Its  duty  is  both  to  admit  her,  and  to 
obey  the  voice  she  utters.  This  was  conceded  by  Kant,  in 
his  Critique  of  the  Practical  Reason,  where  he  shows  that 
barje  thinking,  the  basis  on  which  the  pantheist  tries  to 
build,  is  too  narrow  to  sustain  the  most  vital  truths  of 
philosophy.  Buckle,  whose  positivism  is  at  one  with  pan- 
theism in  this  particular,  rejects  the  teaching  of  the  sage 
of  Konigsberg.  He  puts  knowledge  in  advance  of  good- 
ness ;  welcomes  the  data  of  the  senses  and  understanding, 
and  out  of  them  constructs  a  so-called  history  of  civiliza- 
tion. But  he  pays  no  regard  to  the  categories  of  man's 


PANTHEISM.  379 

moral  nature,  excepting  to  class  them  with  the  supersti- 
tions of  a  theological  and  metaphysical  age.  The  recep- 
tion his  work  has  met  with  shows  the  repugnance  of  his 
doctrine  to  the  convictions  of  wise  and  good  men. 

It  is  not  theology  and  metaphysics,  but  hu- 
man nature,  which  demands  that  supreme  def-  ™^f™£!ia~ 
erence  be  shown  to  the  dictates  of  the  moral  5S5d?tM». 
faculty,  —  which  forever  takes  man  out  of  the 
province  of  necessary  law,  and  makes  him  the  free  and 
responsible  child  of  God.  That  which  sees  God,  and 
opens  to  us  the  book  of  eternal  truth,  is  not  the  mighty 
intellect,  but  the  pure  heart.  Behind  our  inmost  thought, 
coming  out  of  the  depths  of 'our  spirits,  far  beneath  the 
subtlest  play  of  consciousness,  there  is  a  thrill  upward 
through  all  the  soul's  action,  confirming  and  re-echoing 
the  sentence,  that  it  pleases  the  Father  to  hide  from  the 
wise  and  prudent  things  which  he  reveals  to  babes.  This 
vision  of  moral  truth  is  within  the  veil,  in  the  holy  of 
holies  of  the  human  spirit.  In  that  inner  sanctuary  we 
find  the  true  glory  of  man.  And  that  character  is  wor- 
thiest, that  life  mightiest,  that  philosophy  most  surely 
grounded,  which  lays  here  the  beams  of  its  chambers.  To 
turn  away  from  this  shekinah,  is  to  miss  the  brightness  in 
which  forevermore  is  the  hiding  of  its  power.  Virtue  is 
greater  than  intelligence.  Without  holiness  there  can 
be  no  clear  understanding.  Only  as  he  fears  the  Lord 
and  departs  from  evil,  is  either  the  statesman  wise,  or  the 
orator  eloquent,  or  the  poet  inspired.  The  essence  of 
foolishness  is  wickedness,  and  moral  perfection  is  the  only 
foundation  of  a  perfect  philosophy.  There  is  in  every 
man  a  voice  which  gladly  responds  to  these  simple  state- 


380          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

ments.     And  it  is  a  voice  of  authority,  no  less  than  of 
gladness.     It  speaks  out  in  indignant  tones  of 

Ev«ry  hon-      ' 

est  nature      threatening,  when    this    order  of  things   is   re- 

weloomes  it.  ° 

versed  —  when  the  crown  which  innocency 
should  wear  is  made  to  deck  the  brow  of  guilty  power. 
It  forces  us  to  cry  shame,  and  covers  us  with  blushes, 
when  we  see  a  thoughtless  public  showering  honors  upon 
a  corrupt  man,  however  grand  his  mental  proportions. 
To  our  moral  nature,  which  looks  from  between  the  cher- 
ubim, the  aspiring  politician  is  often  dwarfed  to  insignifi- 
cance beside  the  poor  husband,  wife,  or  son  ;  the  dashing 
warrior  eclipsed  by  some  pale-faced  girl,  toiling  alone  to 
support  the  mother  she  loves.  And  if  gratitude  were  not 
so  often  "  a  lively  sense  of  favors  expected,"  —  if  we  could 
make  up  our  minds  to  act  out  our  inmost  and  most  sacred 
judgments,  —  that  suffering  child  of  penury,  not  the  great 
man  whose  trumpet  is  blown  before  him,  would  receive 
from  us  the  statue  and  the  eulogy. 

.  A  main  source  of  the  charm  of  pantheism,  for  many 
The  doctrine  nnn(^s>  ^s  ^ts  doctrine  of  the  divine  immanency. 
o6  ^  ™  tll^s  doctrine  wliich  gives  to  the  writings 


source  Jfa  °f  Theodore  Parker  nearly  all  their  beauty  and 
power.  He  seemed  to  dwell  in  an  ocean  of 
deity.  Whichever  way  he  turned,  he  met  the  divine  in 
all  things.  The  apotheosis  of  nature  was  celebrated  in 
his  sermons,  and  especially  in  his  prayers.  Thus  he  trans- 
figured the  whole  world  to  the  imaginations  of  his  dis- 
ciples ;  they  mistook  poetry  for  philosophy,  the  enchant- 
ment of  their  own  minds  for  religion.  The  fascination  of 
Goethe  arises  in  the  same  way.  lie  xlid  not  distinguish 
between  the  divine  and  the  simply  natural.  He  animated 


PANTHEISM.  381 

nature  with  God.  All  the  world,  under  his  handling,  was 
made  to  take  on  a  strange  beauty;  every  highest  and 
every  lowest  thing  was  idealized,  and  painted  as  a  part  of 
the  universal  whole,  till  it  carried  away  the  reader  in  an 
ecstasy  of  nature-worship.  If  we  watch  our  minds  while 
following  Emerson  through  his  pages  which  delight  us 
most,  we  shall  see  that  the  secret  of  his  power  over  us  is 
the  same.  He  pours  floods  of  divinity  all  through  the 
world;  and  this  sorcery  •  of  the  imagination,  boldly  prac- 
tised where  angels  fear  to  approach,  so  captivates  us  that 
we  are  tempted  to  believe  in  it  as  the  exact  and  unvar- 
nished truth.  Yet  this  charm  is  dissolved  when 
we  come  to  apply  the  doctrine  of  God's  imma-  Proves  too 

much. 

nency  in  all  its  bearings.  If  everything  is  di- 
vine, then  are  even  the  vices  and  crimes  of  men  a  part  of 
the  life  of  God.  These,  as  we  have  had  occasion  to  notice 
in  several  of  the  authors  reviewed,  may  claim  our  worship 
as  really  as  that  which  seems  to  us  most  innocent  and 
pure.  Thus  it  is  that  the  doctrine,  by  its  very  thorough- 
ness and  consistency,  breaks  the  spell  it  had  thrown 
around  us.  Its  power  becomes  weak.  Our  minds  are 
disenchanted.  The  moral  sentiments  utter  their  strong 

^  O 

protest.  We  behold,  with  clear  eye,  that  he  who  makes 
God  identical  with  all  reality,  deals  in  fancies  rather  than 
fact  ;  he  is  a  poet  simply,  not  a  teacher  of  religion  or  its 
true  philosophy. 

Even  the  Christian  poet,  therefore,  has  every  advantage 
which  the  pantheist  may  claim,  and  at  the  same  time  may 
keep  his  pages  pure.     He  knows  that  God  is  not      The  real 
really  the  same  thing  as  the  world  ;  and  hence, 


,  .,  .  this  doc- 

while  painting  nature  as  divine,  he  may  avoid      trine. 


382  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

nil   those   objects  which  are  in  their   essence   base,   and 

give   us   only  such   as    are   fit   emblems   of  a    character 

infinite  in  holiness    and    truth.     Bryant,  for  in- 

Bryant. 

stance,  does  not  claim  to  be  a  philosopher,  but 
only  to  utter  poetic  fancies  quickened  by  faith  in  a  personal 
God,  when  he  says, — 

"  Thou  art  in  the  soft  winds 
That  run  along  the  summit  of  these  trees 
In  music.     Thou  art  in  the  cooler  breath 
That  in  the  inmost  darkness  of  this  place 
Comes  scarcely  felt  —  the  barky  trunks,  the  ground, 
The  moist,  fresh  ground,  all  are  instinct  with  thee." 

Nor  have   we   reason   to   infer  that  Thomson 

Thomson. 

would  confound  the  Creator  with  his  works, 
though  he,  in  the  fervor  of  poetic  contemplation,  could 

say,  — 

"These,  as  they  change,  Almighty  Father!  these 
Are  but  the  varied  God.     The -rolling  year 
Is  full  of  thee.     Forth  in  the  pleasing  Spring 
Thy  beauty  walks,  thy  tenderness  and  love. 
Wide  flush  the  fields  ;  the  softening  air  is  balm ; 
Echo  the  mountains  round ;  the  forest  smiles ;    , 
And  every  sense  and  every  heart  is  joy." 

The  first  lines  of  this  description  would  be  as  baldly 

pantheistic  as  anything  in  Emerson,  were  we 

These  have     forced  to  read  them  in  the  lisrht  of  Emerson's 

as  much 

v°ntw<'e         philosophy;  and  did  not  the  personification  pf 

Eme?Idon!      Spring,.the  fields,  the  mountains,  and  the  forests, 

which  immediately  follows,  show  that  the  whole 

passage  only  gives  voice,  to  a  poetic  reverie.     We  must 


PANTHEISM.  383 

interpret  the  words  of  "  the  Concord  Sage  "  more  strictly 
in  his  May  Day  and  other  'poems,  where  he  confounds 
natural  forces  with  the  attributes  of  God.  He  declares 
that  he  is  looking  into  the  real  substance  of  things,  and 
expounding  them  in  exact  terms,  when  he  says,  — 

"  Thou  seekest  in  globe  and  galaxy; 
He  hides  in  pure  transparency. 
Thou  askest  in  fountains  and  fires  ; 
He  is  the  essence  that  inquires. 
He  is  the  axis  of  the  star; 
He  is  the  sparkle  of  the  spar  ; 
He  is  the  heart  of  every  creature  ; 
He  is  the  meaning  of  every  feature  ; 
And  his  mind  is  the  sky, 
Than  all  it  holds  more  deep,  more  high." 

All  those  features  of  modern  literature  which  are  repul- 
sive to  our  moral  sense,  whether  found  in  the  novels  of 
Charles.  Reade  or  the  Poems  of  Swinburne  and  Walt 
Whitman,  can  find  no  apology  short  of  panthe- 
ism. Whatever  may  be  the  speculative  views 
of  the  writers,  they  are  simply  vulgar,  save  as 
they  go  back  to  the  doctrine  which  Goethe  and 
Carlyle  drew  from  Spinoza.  Those  who  take  pleasure  in 
the  poetry  of  Byron  and  Shelley  thereby  reveal  the  gross- 
ness  of  their  tastes,  or  betray  a  sympathy  with  that  phi- 
losophy to  which  even  sin  is  divine  and  beautiful.  This 
disregard  of  the  moral  imperative,  which  so  abounds  in  a 
class  of  popular  works,  has  its  primary  source,  no  doubt, 
partly  in  the  wish  to  please  sordid  minds  for  the  sake  of 
notoriety  or  gain,  partly  in  the  eagerness  of  writers  to 
indulge  a  feeling  of  unrestrained  freedom,  and  partly  in 


Jure!era 


384          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

efforts  to  imitate  the  great  masters  of  this  species  of  litera- 
ture ;  but  its  only  claim  to  respect,  or  even  to  toleration 
among  people  of  pure  tastes,  is  through  the  favor  of  that 
system  which  transfigures  all  things  into  deity.  Even  the 
freshness  and  originality  of  Joaquin  Miller,  his 
Miner!11  sympathy  with  nature  in  her  wildest  and  love- 
liest moods,  his  brilliant  word-painting,  which 
makes  the  wonders  of  tropical  life  pass  before  us  so  vividly, 
should  not  blind  us  to  the  moral  defects  of  his  poetry. 
Describing  the  filibuster  Walker  and  his  fellow-criminals, 
he  calls  them  — 

"  Men  strangely  brave  and  fiercely  true, 
Who  dared  the  West  when  giants  were, 
Who  erred,  yet  bravely  dared  to  err. 

With  iron  will  and  bated  breath, 
Their  hands  against  their  fellow-man, 
They  rode  —  each  man  an  Ishmaelite. 

I  did  not  question,  did  not  care 

To  know  the  right  or  wrong.     I  saw 

That  savage  freedom  had  a  spell, 

And  loved  it  more  than  I  can  tell, 
And  snapped  my  fingers  at  the  law." 

This  love  of  "  savage  freedom,"  and  painting  it  as  the 
ideal  of  human  enjoyment,  should  be  more  careful  to  dis- 
criminate.    Among  Christians,'and  in  the  teach- 
Good  men 
exposed  to    ings  of  the  pulpit,  there  is   danger,  unless  we 

peril. 

have  a  wise  care,  that  views  will  be  held  which 
cannot  stand  before  conscience  ;  danger  lest  our  hatred  of 
artificial  life,  and  the  joy  we  take  in  unrestrained  liberty, 
should  drive  us  upon  ground  where  Spinozism  will  be  the 


PANTHEISM.  385 

only  reason  we  can  give  for  the  faith  which  is  in  us.     That 
is  the  shelter  of  respectability,  under  which  everything 
immoral,  or  gross,  or  lawless  and  wicked,  may  gather.     It 
is  a  shelter  which  may  be  stretched  out  over  all 
that  is  fair  and  charming ;  but  it  is  equally  hos-   Tr^ed°f  ~the 
pitable  to  base  and  repulsive  things.     This  want 
of  discrimination,  disregard  of  moral  differences, 
confusing  the  good  with  the  bad,  is  a  fatal  weak- 
ness.    Pantheism  must  be  judged,  not  by  the  pure  things 
for  which  it  claims  to  make  room,  but  by  the  impure  things 
which  fly  to  it  for  protection. 

Another  source  of  power  in  pantheism,  to  which  multi- 
tudes of  men  are  especially  susceptible,  is  the  intellectual 
eminence,  and  in  some  instances  the  moral 

The  argu- 

purity,  of  its  masters.     The  argument  is,  that  a  mont  from 

great  men. 

doctrine  held  by  such  persons  should  be  pre- 
sumed to  be  true.  But  let  us  see  what  becomes  of  this 
argument,  when  we  examine  and  discriminate.  The  mas- 
ters of  pantheism  have  never  been  first-rate,  but  at  the 
best  only  second-rate  thinkers.  Descartes  was  the  teacher 
of  Spinoza ;  discovered,  by  his  transcendent  genius,  the 
data  which  Spinoza's  logic  carried  out  to  their  gloomy 
conclusion.  So  Fichte,  Schellinff,  and  Heffel  are 

Pantheism 

overshadowed  by  Kant,  who  was  not  a  panthe-  cannot 

claim  these. 

ist.  Without  him  they  could  not  have  been. 
He  is  the  great  primary  in  the  system  of  transcendental 
thought ;  and  he  remains  such,  while  they  wander  into 
darkness.  The  power,  therefore,  is  not  in  the  pantheism, 
but  in  that  spiritual  philosophy  whicli  pantheism  distorts 
and  caricatures.  The  charm  is  in  the  Kantian  metnphysics, 
in  the  transcendental  philosophy.  With  this  philosophy 


386          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

the  greatest  names  of  the  race  have  been  associated,  and 
will  be.  Of  all  subjects  of  investigation  it  is  the  most 
difficult,  and  hence  appeals  only  to  the  highest  order  of 
minds.  It  is  subtle,  profound,  inexhaustible.  There  can 
be  no  other  such  intellectual  gymnastic  as  it 

Transcen- 
dentalism      affords ;  for  it  taxes   the   attention,  the  reason, 
can. 

the  imagination,  the  logical  understanding,  the 
power  of  expression,  to  their  utmost,  and  ever  more  and 
more.  Now  those  must  be  minds  of  more  than  the  aver- 
age rank,  which  are  first  attracted  to  this  philosophy;  nor 
can  they  escape  the  benefits  of  its  discipline  altogether, 
though  not  great  enough  to  hold  themselves  back  from  the 
abysses  of  pantheism.  It  is  their  love  of  a-priori  thought, 
of  purely  spiritual  investigation,  that  proves  them  great ; 
that  some  of  them  lose  their  balance,  and  drift  into  pan- 
theism, is  a  proof  of  weakne.ss.  Life  is  a  probation,  a  con- 
stant scene  of 'trial;  and  that  trial  which  affords  the 
grandest  discipline,  offers  at  the  same  time  the  most  fear- 
ful temptation.  The  exposures  of  the  a-priori  philosophy 

are  very  qreat ;  and  the  fact  that  some  of  the 

They  have 

escaped  the    foremost  thinkers  of  the  race  have  slid  from  it 

perils  of 

loso  I)"  mto  Pantn(?isni5  but  makes  more  conspicuous 
those  who  have  stood  firm  on  its  slippery  edge, 
—  secured  not  so  much  by  the  grandeur  of  their  intellect, 
as  by  their  sublime  faith  in  the  Son  of  the  Living  God. 
The  best  philosophical  fruit  of  the  ages  is  ripened  by  that 
style  of  thought ;  yet  as  soon  as  the  thought  begins  to  be 
pantheistic,  that  ripe  fruit  becomes  over  ripe,  and  to  the 
discriminating  taste  loathsome. 

I  cannot  forbear  to  speak  here  of  the  growing  disposi- 
tion, in  some  quarters,  to  let  scientific  studies  take  pre- 


PANTHEISM.  387 

cedence  of  metaphysics,  at  our  colleges  and  universities. 
It  seems  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  most  serious  mistakes  of 
educators  at  the  present  day.  Though  it  may 
be  true  that  the  spiritual  philosophy  will  give  \c»  hfedu- 
us  here  and  there  a  Spinoza,  a  Hegel,  a  Goethe, 
a  Carlyle  or  Emerson,  yet  what  are  these  to  the  spawn 
of  an  empirical  philosophy?  If  the  infidelities  growing 
out  of  transcendeittalism  were  even  worse  thnn  those 
growing  out  of  materialism,  yet  it  has  this  signal  advan- 
tage: it  honors  the  soul ;  it  emphasizes  the  spiritual  na- 
ture of  man ;  it  trains  our  noblest  mental  faculties  as 
material  science  never  can.  I  would  not  pluck  one  honor 
from  those  who  are  extending  our  knowledge  of  nature  ; 
we  owe  them  a  great  debt,  but  their  pursuits  do  not  give 
the  discipline  which  most  ennobles  human  minds.  The 
names  of  great  naturalists  are  spoken  reverently ;  but 
where  is  the  volume  contributed  by  them  to  the  literature 
of  the  ages,  and  living  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration in  the  hearts  of  men  ?  Their  discov-  physical  A 
cries  become,  after  a  little,  the  tools  of  the 
craftsman  and  economist.  To  their  honor  be  it  said  that 
all  works  of  present  utility  owe  them  a  vast  debt ;  but 
where  is  the  poem,  the  classic,  the  moral  or  religious  vol- 
ume, conceived  in  their  minds,  which  lives  on  through 
time,  and  ennobles  and  inspires?  In  vain  do  we  look  to 
the  futui  e  for  an  order  of  men  who  shall  write  our  hymns, 
who  shall«enrich  our  literature,  who  shall  elevate  and  re- 
fine the  tone  of  thinking  among  the  people,  if  we  turn  the 
minds  of  our  students  down  from  the  ideal  realm,  to  labor 
on  that  whose  fashion  is-  all  the  time  passing  away.  "  It 
is  as  the  best  gymnastic  of  the  mind,"  says  Sir  William 


388  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

Hamilton,  "  as  a  mean  principally  and  almost 
HamiUonf  excmsively  conducive  to  the  highest  education 
of  our  noblest  powers,  that  we  would  vindicate 
to  metaphysical  studies  the  necessity  which  has  too  fre- 
quently been  denied  them.  By  no  other  intellectual  appli- 
cation, and  least  of  all  by  physical  pursuits,  is  the  soul  thus 
reflected  on  itself,  and  its  faculties  concentrated  in  such 
independent,  vigorous,  unwonted,  and  "continuous  energy. 
By  none,  therefore,  are  its  best  capacities  so  variously  and 
intensely  evolved.  '  Where  there  is  most  life  there  is 
most  victory.' "  *  If  we  look  into  the  history  of  literature, 
we  shall  find  that  its  most  glorious  eras  have  been  illumi- 
nated by  metaphysics  ;  that  its  proudest  achiev- 
Scicntific  ments  were  the  fair  outgrowth  and  blossom  of  a 

eras  barren 

turetera  spiritual  philosophy.  And  on  the  other  hand 
we  shall  find  that  its  most  barren  periods,  when 
the  oracles  were  dumb  and  there  was  no  open  vision, 
when  no  monumental  work  was  printed,  when  nothing 
was  written  which  the  world  refuses  to  let  die,  have  been 
times  of  the  bondage  of  genius  to  empirical  pursuits.  The 
mind  of  the  age  ceased  to  have  its  conversation  in  heaven, 
and  was  led  captive  in  the  chains  of  the  flesh.  Thus  it 
became  weak,  and  groped  in  darkness ;  nor  did  it  any 
longer  have  to  do  with  the  deep  intuitions  of  humanity, 
but  built -hay,  wood,  and  stubble  into  the  walls  which  are 
from  everlasting  to  everlasting. 

But  not  one  of  the  great  benefits  which  result  from  the 
study  of  metaphysics  is  to  be  accredited  to  pan- 
honor's          theism.     These  benefits  have  been  secured  in 
most  transcendent  measure  where  no  pantheistic 

1  Philosophical  Discussions,  p.  39. 


PANTHEISM.  389 

element  mingles.  They  begin  to  be  tainted  as  soon  as  that 
element  appears.  It  changes  insight  to  mysticism,  large- 
ness of  view  to  vagueness,  wealthy  thought  to  corrupting 
dreams.  It  is  only  as  the  transcendentalist  holds  back 
from.  this  extreme,  not  slipping  down  from  the  plane  of 
high  discipline  into  the  state  of  mental  lassitude,  that  he 
continues  to  be  strong  and  to  prevail.  Nor  is  that  purity 
of  life,  seen  in  such  men  as  Spinoza  and  Emerson,  any  real 
support  of  their  doctrine.  It  fascinates  their 
disciples,  and  thus  makes  way  for  what  they 


.  .  teacher  not 

teach,  but  it   is   no  iruit  ot  their  teaching.     A   a  test  of  ina 

doctrine. 

thinker  may  be  pure  in  life,  while  thinking  out 
a  system  fearfully  corrupting  to  others.  He  is  too  much 
absorbed  in  profound  investigation  to  desire  base  indul- 
gence. With  him  study  is  the  pleasure  which  satisfies 
every  craving;  he  'has  no  other  passion  to  be  gratified. 
"  Keep  men  thinking,"  says  a  late  writer,  "  and  it  matters 
not  what  their  doctrines  or  their  philosophy  may  be  ;  we 
know  pretty  well  what  their  lives  must  be.  A  Spinoza 
gives  as  little  trouble  to  the  state  as  the  Seraphic  Doctor 
himself.  All  men  absorbed  in  thinking  have  that  which 
will  keep  them  steady,  as  they  pace  the  strange  passage 
from  birth  to  death."  l  It  is  only  as  the  doctrines  of  these 
thinkers  flow  up  from  the  fountains  to  the  surface,  and 
mix  with  social  and  every-day  life,  that  we  discover  their 
true  character.  And  here  the  weakness  of  pantheism  is 
made  overwhelmingly  manifest;  for  the  morals  of  commu- 
nities brought  under  its  influence  will  not  bear  even  the 
most  superficial  scrutiny. 

A  system  of  thinking  cannot  be  true,  which  thus  foils  to 

1  "  Thorndale." 


390          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

endure  the  test  of  conscience.  Our  better  na- 
cri?erionCal  ture  f°rces  us  to  turn  from  it  to  that  which 

helps  pure-hearted  men  and  women  in  actual 
life.  Their  right  impulses,  which  it  is  never  unsafe 'to 
heed,  demand  a  doctrine  from  which  they  can  draw  com- 
fort in  trouble ;  which  arms  them  against  temptation ; 
which  girds  them  for  every  good  word  and  work.  They 
are  very  unwise  champions  of  Christianity,  knowing  but 
little  of  its  blessed  spirit,  who  cower  in  the  presence  of 
popular  errors ;  who  try  to  stretch  their  charity  so  as  to 
take  in  every  great  philosopher,  whatever  his  religious, 
views,  fearing  that  if  he  be  left  out,  the  gospel  may  fall 

into  disrepute.     Christianity  is  no  client.     Much 

Christianity 

above  all       less  does  it  need  the  patronage  ot  those  who 

patronage.    - 

are  slow  to  confess  its  excellency.  If  any  of 
the  so-called  great  men  of  the  world  find  it  in  their  hearts 
to  disown  Christ,  the  loss  is  all  their  own.  It  is  they,  not 
the  Rock  cut  out  of  the  mountain,  that  must  be  ground  to 
powder. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  the  strength  of  pantheism  turns 
to  weakness  when  duly  examined.     It  has  no  ground  at 
all  in  strict  reason.     How,  then,  shall  we  account  for  its 
ascendency  over  minds  of  no  mean  order?     We  can  ex- 
plain this  fact  quite  naturally.     The  system  has 

How  men 

become          been  to  such  minds  what  Calypso  s  cave  was  to 

pantheists. 

the  hero  of  the  Odyssey.  Iii  their  search  home- 
ward for  eternal  truth,  demanding  of  them  tireless  effort 
and  caution,  they  have  grown  weary,  and  have  allowed 
this  charm  to  draw  them  out  of  their  course.  Worn  out 
by  the  ceaseless  strain,  and  no  Star  of  Bethlehem  rising 


PANTHEISM.  391 

on  them,  they  have  yielded  to  the  enchantress.  The  soft 
fascination,  half  poetical  and  half  philosophical,  gradually 
Overcame  them.  They  were  J^orne  away  on  a  delicious 
dream ;  grew  averse  to  argument ;  vaguely  believed  their 
dream  true  —  either  because  they  wished  it  true,  or 
through  doubt  of  all  other  things.  The  system  has  lived, 
for  the  most  part,  in  the  minds  of  a  few  solitary  thinkers. 
It  has  become  popular  only  as  it  has  enabled  those  hold- 
ing it  to  voice  forth  some  great  feeling  of  the  times. 
Thus,  when  everything  was  ripe  for  a  revolution  in  Eu- 
rope, the  ruled  rising  up  against  their  rulers  in  both  church 
and  state,  pantheistic  writers  stepped  forward,  and  led  in 
the  wide  revolt.  The  practical  import  of  their 
creed  was,  that  every  man  should  act  out  what 
might  be  in  him  to  his  utmost,  regarding  as 
sacred  only  the  impulses  of  his  own  nature. 
Established  forms  were  profane  and  unreal,  over  which 
the  people  might  boldly  ride,  borne  forward  by  the  divine 
strength  of  their  own  desires.  Thus  did  Goethe  and 
others  give  the  reins  to  malcontents,  and  apply  the  spur, 
raising  a  storm  from  which  they  were  glad  afterwards  to 
hide  their  heads.  It  was  not  argument,  but  the  discovery 
of  something  favorable  to  their  revolutionary  spirit,  which 
brought  the  masses  into  love  with  pantheism.  Here  was 
a  philosophy  which  legitimated  disorder.  They  were  will- 
ing to  embrace,  without  careful  study,  a  doctrine  which 
encouraged  them  in  overturning  governments,  guillotining 
monarchs,  ami  sacking  public  treasuries.  So 
more  recently  in  England,  and  to  some  extent  dSSrdw/68 
in  America.  If  pantheistic  teachings  liave 
spread  among  our  people,  it  is  because  lawless  desire  had 


392  HALF    TRUTHS    AND    THE    TRUTH. 

paved  the  way  for  theory.  Enemies,  not  only  of  political 
wrong's,  but  of  the  Bible,  the  Sabbath;  the  church,  the 
family,  the  state,  wish  somg  plausible  premise  i'roinjvvRicti 
to  deduce  their  action.  Champions  of  free  love,  and  of  a 
higher  law  found  in  their  lower  nature,  know,  that  the 
social  chaos  they  invoke  can-  never  come,  in  a  thoughtful 
community,  save  as  they  ,are  able  to  show  for  it  some 
ground  of  authority.  Hence  pantheism,  more  or  less 
clearly  defined,  is  their  natural  ally.  From  this  their  lax- 
ness  -of  morals,  and  general  irregularity  of  life,  may  be 
legitimately  reached  by  a  chain  of  practical  logic.  It  is 
the  fruitful  root  out  of  which  all  their  disorder  and  cor- 
ruption can  be  made  to  grow.  It  gives  them  the  license 
they  crave,  and  at  the  same  time  invests  their  libertinism 
with  the  air  and  grandeur  of  philosophy. 

The  pantheism  which  has  poisoned  so  much  of  our  pop- 
ular literature  for  a  generation  past,  seems  now  to  be  in 
its  decadence.  Should  its  reign  be  hereafter  restored,  let 
us  at  least  hope  that  it  may  not  be  ushered  in  through 
the  gateway  of  man's  lower  passions.  What  we  know  of 
the  English,  and  especially  of  the  Puritan  stock,  persuades 
us  that  such  is  not  the  first  danger.  Our  danger  seems 
to  me  to  arise  rather  from  that  worship  of  intellectual 
greatness  which  is  so  natural  to  our  people.  This  was  the 
source  in  which  the  stream  of  German  pantheism  began. 
The  race  of  which  we  come  is  largely  Teutonic.  Its  dis- 
persed members,  like  those  of  the  fatherland, 

Our  expo-  v. 

puro  to  the     are   too   much   inclined   to  exalt   sheer  mental 

peril. 

power.  The  honor  they  yield  it  is  sometimes  a 
homage  not  due  to '  the  creature,  but  only  to  the  Creator. 
That  which  we  idolize,  to  which  we  burn  incense,  is  not 


PANTHEISM.  393 

simple  moral  worth,  but  natural  genius,  refined  by  schol- 
arly culture.  In  this  Imtnt  Hes'our  special  peril.  It  makes 
us  too  willing  to  be  influenced  by,  men  of  commanding 
intellect,  without  .regard  to  the  moral  principles  they 
teach,  and  it  may  be  also  practise.  This,  habit  shuts  our 
eye  to  the  higher  and  nobler -part  of  man's  nature.  It 
prepares  us  to  accept  doctrines  which  may  poison  our 
character,  simply  because  they  are  held,  and  urged  upon 
our  attention,  by  some  imperial  thinker. 

I  would  not  discredit  mental  activity.  Let  it  continue 
to  distinguish  the  English-speaking  races,  and  especially 
the  people  of  America.  In  the  future,  more  than  in  the 
past,  let  ours  be  the  land  of  teachers,  lecturers,  authors, 
scholars.  But  let  us  not  worship  intellectual  eminence. 
Let  us  insist  on  some  other  and  diviner  quality  in  the  man 
whom  we  accept  as  truly  great.  Let  us  demand 
of  every  leader,  and  of  every  volume  that  asks  2ac»fe 
our  favorable  verdict,  fidelity  to  conscience, 
moral  purity  in  tendency  as  well  as  tone.  Let  us  bid  the 
new  comer  stand  afar  on",  as  an  infected  and  deadly  thing, 
if  it  only  stimulates  the  thinking  faculty,  and  does  not  lift 
the  soul  nearer  to  God.  If  it  would  escape  this  quar- 
antine, and  sail  into  the  harbor  of  our  faith  and  love,  let 
it  bring,  besides  and  above  everything  else,  an  influence 
which  shall  cleanse  and  exalt  the  natural  affections; 
which  shall  guard  the  sanctuary  of  the  heart ;  which  shall 
build  broader  and  higher,  itsteaol  of  stealthily  undermining, 
that  wall  of  instinctive  delicacy  which  keeps  the  honor 
and  happiness  of  our  firesides. 

Then  there  will  be  no  stock  on  which  pantheism  may 
ingraft  itself  among  us.     Our  ideal  of  the  true  man,  and 


394          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTH. 

of  the  true  woman,  will  continue  to  be  grander  than  any- 
thing of  which  Spinoza  dreamed.  And  so  we  shall  not 
exchange,  for  this  monster  which  devours  up  all  things, 
the  one  only  living  and  true  God.  We  shall  not  exchange, 
for  this  hideous  nightmare  of  the  absolute  being  which  is 
nothing,  our  sweet  faith  and  instinctive  trust  in  the  Father 
of  our  spirits.  The  peace  passing  all  understanding  shall 
still  be  ours  ;  even  the  peace  which  comes  of  the  assurance 
that  he  is  with  us,  and  that  we  are  his  children,  whom  no 
power  can  pluck  from  his  hand.  He  draws  about  us  the 

savor  of  his  companionship,  and  undertakes  with 
betfe^thaS  us>  wllile  we  are  toilmg  downward  after  the  lost 
££s.eisra  and  vile.  He  covers  us  with  the  shield  of  his 

presence,  and  reenforces  our  strength  with  his 
own  almighty  power,  when  we  march  forth  to  fight  against 
iniquity  and  outstanding  wrongs.  It  is  unto  a  personal 
God,  who  knows  our  frame,  that  we  lift  up  our  cry  out  of 
weakness  and  troubles  ;  and  we  are  sure  that  he  is  atten- 
tive to  our  prayer.  Whether  living  or  dying,  we  are  his. 
We  go  to  our  graves,  even,  trustfully  and  in  blessed  hope. 
For  it  is  he  who  bids  us  depart ;  and  we  hear  his  whisper, 
in  fatherly  mercy,  saying  to  us  that  after  the  natural  cometh 
the  spiritual,  and  that  we  shall  be  satisfied  with  beholding 
his  face,  when  we  awake  in  that  nearer  fellowship  to  which 
his  love  invites  us. 

Of  the  subjects  considered  in  this  course  of 

Conclusion. 

lectures,  we  now  take  our  leave.     I  have  en- 
deavored as  a  companion,  and  in  some  sense  as  a  guide,  to 
go  with  others  through  the  depths  and  windings  of  pan- 
theistic thinking.     If  our  incursion  into  that  realm  has 


PANTHEISM.  395 

reminded  any  of  scenes  described  in  the  Sixth  Book  of 
the  JEneid,  I  trust  they  have  not  lacked,  throughout,  a 
charm  more  potent  than  Virgil  makes  his  hero  carry.  It 
is  from  the  Tree  of  Life  that  we  must  pluck  a  branch,  if 
we  would  walk  unharmed  in  the  shadow-land  of  scepticism. 
What  the  adored  Beatrice  was  to  Dante,  in  his  Inferno, 
while  he  passed  through  circle  after  circle  of  the  deepening 
abyss,  the  Spirit  of  Truth  must  be  to  us  in  the 
underworld  of  religious  error.  I  am  relieved  ^^"3? 
even  to  gladness,  coming  up  as  I  now  do  out  of 
this  investigation,  into  a  realm  where  I  may  again  breathe 
the  upper  air  and  see  the  sweet  light  of  the  Christian  faith. 
It  is  as  though  one  were  awaking  at  length  from  a  long 
and  fearful  dream.  Notwithstanding  the  mighty  intellects 
which  pantheism  may  claim,  and  though  I  have  tried  to 
recognize  the  grandeur  of  the  literary  works  of  its  disciples, 
I  yet  experience  a  refluent  joy  and  peace  in  standing  once 
more  amid  the  radiance  of  Christian  ideas,  and  hearkening 
to  the  voice  of  the  Living  God,  my  Father  and  Friend, 
speaking  to  me  with  the  accents  of  a  personal  and  tender 
love.  This  experience,  coming  after  so  much  groping  in 
the  regions  of  darkness,  recalls  what  Richter  so  graphically 
describes  as  happening  to  him  one  summer  evening,  while 
he  lay  on  the  hill-side  and  slept. 

He  dreamed  that  he  was  in  the  parish  church,  and  that 
he  saw  the  dead  leave  their  graves  and  gather  about  him. 
"  The  shadows  stood  congregated  near  the  altar ;  and  in 
all  the  breast  throbbed  and  trembled  in  place  of  a  heart. 
One,  which  had  just  been  buried  in  the  church,  lay  still 
upon  its  pillow,  and  its  breast  heaved  not,  while  Rioter's 
upon  its  smiling  countenance  lay  a  happy  DreHm- 


896          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TKUTH. 

dream ;  but  on  the  entrance  of  one  of  the  living  he 
awoke,  and  smiled  no  more.  A  lofty,  noble  form,  hav- 
ing the  expression  of  a  never-ending  sorrow,  now  sank 
down  upon  the  altar,  and  all  the  dead  exclaimed,  'Christ, 
is  there  no  God  ? '  And  he  answered, '  There  is  none  !  I 
traversed  the  worlds.  I  ascended  into  the  suns,  and  flew 
with  the  milky  ways  through  the  wildernesses  of  the  heavens, 
but  there  is  no  God  !  I  descended  as  far  as  being  throws 
its  shadow,  and  gazed  down  into  the  abyss,  and  cried  aloud, 
"  Father,  where  art  thou  ? "  but  I  heard  nothing  but  the 
eternal  storm  which  no  one  rules  ;  and  when  I  looked  up  to 
the  immeasurable  void  for  the  divine  eye,  it  glared  upon 
me  from  an  empty,  bottomless  socket,  and  eternity  lay 
brooding  upon  chaos.'  Then  there  arose,  and  came  into 
the  temple,  the  dead  children  who  had  awakened  in  the 
churchyard ;  and  they  cast  themselves  before  the  lofty 
form  on  the  altar,  And  said,  '  Jesus,  have  we  no  Father  ? ' 
And  he  answered  with  streaming  eyes,  '  We  are  all 
orphans,  I  and  you;  we  are  without  a  Father.'  And 
as  I  fell  down  and  gazed  into  the  gleaming  fabric  of 
worlds,  I  beheld  the  raised  rings  of  the  giant  serpent  of 
eternity,  and  she  enfolded  the  universe  doubly.  Then  she 
wound  herself  in  a  thousand  folds  around  nature,  and 
crushed  the  worlds  together ;  and  all  became  narrow,  dark, 
and  fearful,  and  a  bell-hammer,  stretched  out  to  infinity, 
was  about  to  strike  the  last  hour  of  time,  and  split  the 
universe  asunder,  when  I  awoke.  My  soul  wept  for  joy 
that  it  could  again  worship  God ;  and  the  joy,  and  the 
tears,  and  the  belief  in  him  were  the  prayer.  And  when  I 
arose,  the  sun  gleamed  deeply  behind  the  full,  purple  ears 
of  corn,  and  peacefully  threw  the  reflection  of  its  evening 


PANTHEISM.  .397 

blushes  on  the  little  moon,  which  was  rising  in  the  east 
without  an  aurora.  And  between  the  heaven  and  the 
earth  a  glad,  fleeting  world  stretched  out  its  short  wings, 
and  lived,  like  myself,  in  the  presence  of  the  Infinite 
Father ;  and  from  all  nature  round  me  flowed  sweet,  peace- 
ful tones,  as  from  evening  bells." 

There  are  expressions  in  the  writings  of  Richter  which 
indicate  that  even  he  did  not  wholly  escape  the  pantheistic 
virus.     It  may  have  been  hatred  of  atheism,  rather  than 
of  Spinozism,  which  moved   him   to   utter  these   words. 
Yet  are  they  applicable  to  the  latter,  in  some  respects, 
more  than  to  the  former.     I  am  willing  to  take  the  passage 
as  declarative  of  strong  faith  in  a  personal  God ;  for  such 
it  certainly  is,  at  least  in  form.     Whatever  Richter's  specu- 
lative belief  may  have  been,  therefore,  we  may  adopt  his 
Dream  as  illustrative  of  the  workings  of  our  Christian  faith 
in  view  of  pantheism.     Thus  viewing   it,  the 
chord   of   gladness   within    us,  which   vibrates 
responsively  to  its  dosing  words,  is  deeper  than 
any  pantheistic  doctrine  can  ever  reach.     Nor 
has  Goethe,  the  illustrious  friend  of  Schiller,  written  any- 
thing so  reverent  and  touching  as  the  prayer  which  Schiller's 
father,  an  unlearned  but  pious  man,  offered  up  for  his  infant 
son :  "  O  God,  that  knowest  my  poverty  in  good  gifts  for 
my  son's  inheritance,  graciously  permit  that  even  as  the 
want   of   bread,   to   thy   Son's   hunger-stricken 
flock  in  the  wilderness,  became  the  pledge  of 
overflowing  abundance,  so  likewise  my  darkness 
may,  in   its    sad   extremity,  carry  with   it   the 
measure  of  thy  unfathomable  light ;  and  because 
I,  thy  worm,  cannot  give  to  my  son  the  least  of  blessings, 


398          HALF  TRUTHS  AND  THE  TRUTH. 

do  thou  give  the  greatest ;  because  in  my  hands  there  is 
npt  anything,  do  thou  from  thine  pour  out  all  things ;  and 
that  temple  of  a  new-born  spirit,  which  I  cannot  adorn 
even  with  earthly  ornaments  of  dust  and  ashes,  do  thou 
irradiate  with  the  celestial  adornments  of  thy  presence, 
and  finally  with  that  peace  which  passeth  all  understand- 
ing." We  search  in  vain,  throughout  the  pantheistic 
literature  of  Germany,  for  anything  so  sublime  as  this  faith 
in  a  personal  God,  or  which  so  stirs  the  pure  heart.  What 
is  there  coming  from  the  renowned  Spinoza  himself,  or 
from  his  most  famous  disciple,  which  can  awake  the  sweet- 
est and  holiest  emotions  of  our  souls  like  the 
the  twenty-  twenty-third  Psalm  ?  As  Ion  or  as  we  "believe 

third  Psalm. 

that  what  is  noblest  in  us  is  most  trustworthy, 
as  long  as  the  purest  impulses  of  our  nature  are  any  guide 
to  the  truth,  so  long  must  we  bow  to  the  instinctive  yearn- 
ing for  a  personal  God,  and  say,  in  calm  defiance  of  the 
wisdom  which  bewilders,  "  THE  LORD  is  MY  SHEPHERD  ; 

I  SHALL  NOT  WANT.  HE  MAKETH  ME  TO  LIE  DOWN  IN 
GREEN  PASTURES  ;  HE  LEADETH  ME  BESIDE  THE  STILL 
WATERS.  HE  RESTORETH  MY  SOUL  ;  HE  LEADETH  ME 
IN  THE  PATHS  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS  FOR  HIS  NAME'S 
SAKE.  YEA,  THOUGH  I  WALK  THROUGH  THE  VALLEY 
OF  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH,  I  WILL  FEAR  NO  EVIL  ; 
FOR  THOU  ART  WITH  ME  ;  THY  ROD  AND  THY  STAFF 


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